Pierpaolo Vergerio the Elder
The Humanist as Orator
Pierpaolo Vergerio the Elder
The Humanist as Orator
xexTS & STuDies
Volume 163
Pierpaolo Vergerio the Elder
The Humanist as Orator
John M. McManamon, S. J.
cneDiev^iL & ReKi2iissAKice rexTS & STuC>ies
Tempe, Arizona
1996
The publication of this volume has been supported by grants
from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
and Loyola University of Chicago.
® Copyright 1996
Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pierpaolo Vergio the elder : the humanist as orator / by John M.
McManamon.
p. cm. — (Medieval & Renaissance texts & studies ; v. 163)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-86698-204-3 (alk. paper)
1. Vergerio, Pietro Paolo, the Elder, 1370-1444. 2. Speeches, addresses,
etc., Latin (Medieval and modern)— Italy— History and criticism. 3. Authors,
Latin (Medieval and modem)— Italy— Biography. 4. Humanists— Italy— Biography.
I. McManamon, John M. II. Series.
PA8585.V397Z8 1996
001.3'092-dc20 96-24767
[B] CIP
©
This book was edited and produced
by MRTS at SUNY Binghamton.
This book is made to last.
It is set in Garamond Antiqua,
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For my brothers:
Tom, Dave, and Pat
Table of Contents
Preface IX
Abbreviations XIII
Pierpaolo Vergerio the Elder: The Humanist as Orator
Chapter 1 lustinopolitanus 1
Chapter 2 Adolescence 17
Chapter 3 Classicizing Oratory 31
Chapter 4 Petrarch's Legacy 51
Chapter 5 The Power of the Visible 71
Chapter 6 A Humanist Education for Adolescents 89
Chapter 7 Disenchantment at Court 105
Chapter 8 Humanism's Patron Saint 121
Chapter 9 Humanism and Church Reform 137
Chapter 10 Imperial Bureaucrat 153
Conclusion 169
Bibliography 181
Index 214
Preface
MY research for several years has focused upon a key member of
the third generation of humanists, Pierpaolo Vergerio the elder
(ca. 1369-1444). Modern interest in Vergerio was spurred in a decisive
way by Leonardo Smith who published his exhaustive edition of the
humanist's correspondence in 1934. Smith's dogged search for materials
from the life of Vergerio has remained a departure point for other
scholars. Interest in Vergerio was renewed some thirty years after Smith,
when Hans Baron and Eugenio Garin analyzed certain of his works as
part of a wider appraisal of civic humanism and the crisis of the early
Italian Renaissance. David Robey then engaged in mild polemic with
Baron's interpretation of the thought of Vergerio. Robey justly broad-
ened Baron's perspectives on Vergerio by taking into account the whole
of his corpus. However, Robey has consistently emphasized the tradi-
tional character of Vergerio's positions. My approach stresses his origi-
nality. Vergerio's career and writings influenced the development of the
young movement in several areas: its epistemology, ideology, education-
al curriculum, emphasis on ethos, and its relationship to the university,
to political authority, to religious belief, and to the visual arts. By
emphasizing public service through oratory, Vergerio supplied a new
matrix for Italian humanism.
This biography will be supplemented by a second volume, which
will contain a critical edition of Vergerio's panegyrics of Saint Jerome
and an English translation of those works. In Latin citations for the
biography, I have used the same criteria that I have employed in the edi-
tion of the panegyrics. The virtual absence of autograph material by
Vergerio makes it impossible to reconstruct his Latin orthography.
X Preface
Therefore, the orthography in the Latin citations has been standardized
using the norms in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Modern standards have
been used as well for punctuation and capitalization. Angular brackets
< > indicate letters, words, or passages added to the text on the belief
that something was omitted in the course of transmission; square brack-
ets [ ] indicate editorial deletions from the transmitted text. To make the
volume as autonomous as possible, I decided to err on the side of inclu-
siveness when citing Vergerio's works, even those published in modern
times.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance that I have received in
bringing this book to completion. My primary debts are to the institu-
tions which funded the research and to the libraries which facilitated it.
I thank Gladys Krieble Delmas and the Foundation she has established
for Venetian Research; her generosity has aided many scholars in study-
ing the gamut of issues evoked by that most evocative of cities. I am
likewise grateful to Loyola University of Chicago for paid research
leaves that offered me that greatest of academic benefits: time to concen-
trate on a single project. While working in Venice, I enjoyed the hospi-
tality of the Jesuit Research Institute. This book owes a great deal to
that Institute and its founders, Rev. Federico Lombardi, S. J., and Rev.
Dino Faggion, S. J. The Jesuits of Campion Hall in Oxford offered me
ideal quarters in which to conduct a summer's research. I also resided
for lengthy periods within a stone's throw of the Pantheon at the Jesuit
Collegio San Roberto Bellarmino. During those Roman sojourns, I was
given support by Rev. Dominic Marucca, S. J., Rev. Bernard Hall, S. J.,
and a host of Jesuits from around the world.
I am likewise grateful to the administration of the following libraries
for answering my queries and for supplying photographic reproductions
of Vergerio materials: the University Library in Cambridge; the Baye-
rische Staatsbibliothek in Munich; the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris;
Drs. Fiorella Romano and A. Garofalo of the Biblioteca Nazionale in
Naples; Dr. Louis Jordan, the Curator of the Ambrosiana Collection at
the University of Notre Dame; Mr. D. P. Mortlock, the Librarian at
Holkham Hall in Norfolk; Ms. Fran Benham of the Pius XII Library at
St. Louis University; Dr. Michelle Brown, Curator of Manuscripts at the
British Library in London; Dr. B. C. Barker-Benfield, Senior Assistant
Librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford; Dr. Gerd Brinkhus of the
Universitatsbibliothek in Tubingen; Drs. Glauco Giuliano and Aldo
Pirola of the Biblioteca Queriniana in Brescia; Prof. Luciano A. Floramo
of the Biblioteca Guarneriana in San Daniele del Friuli; Dr. Antonio
Preface H
Antonioni of the Biblioteca Universitaria in Padua; Rev. Ugo Fossa of
the BibHoteca del Monastero in CamaldoH; Dr. Claudine Lemaire of the
Bibliotheque Royale Albert ler in Brussels; Rev. Pierantonio Gios of the
Biblioteca del Seminario in Padua; Dr. Ernesto Milano of the Biblioteca
Estense in Modena; Dr. M. Luisa Turchetti of the Biblioteca Nazionale
Braidense in Milan; Dr. Emilio Lippi of the Biblioteca Comunale in Tre-
viso; Dr. Nolden of the Stadtbibliothek in Trier; Rev. John Brudney, O.
S. B., of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library at St. John's University;
and Dr. Ramon Gonzalvez of the Archivo y Biblioteca Capitolares in
Toledo.
Dr. Ennio Sandal, former director of the Biblioteca Comunale in
Brescia, welcomed me in ways beyond the call of duty. I am also grate-
ful to Dr. Dino Barattin, then director of the Biblioteca Comunale in
San Daniele, who went so far as to have me sample the local prosciutto
and put me in contact with Prof. Laura Casarsa of the University of
Trieste, who shared her exhaustive description of San Daniele codex 144
with me prior to its publication. There are four libraries where I passed
many months consulting manuscripts and supporting materials: the Bod-
leian Library in Oxford, the Museo Civico in Padua, the Biblioteca Na-
zionale Marciana in Venice, and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in
Vatican City. To their directors and employees I would like to say a
special word of thanks and offer hope that the publication of this vol-
ume in some way repays their collective confidence. That holds doubly
for Rev. Leonard Boyle, O.P., who was kind enough to take time from
his busy schedule and check two Vatican manuscripts for me.
Concetta Bianca and Massimo Miglio gave their valuable time to help
me rule out the presence of Giannandrea Bussi's hand in two Vatican
codices. Armando Petrucci and Franca Nardelli offered assistance in
matters of paleography and codicology and provided constant inspira-
tion concerning a scholar's commitment. I am very grateful to Gianfran-
co Fioravanti for reading the Latin texts of the Vergerio sermons with
the careful eye that characterizes his editorial work in late medieval
Latin. Lastly, throughout the years of preparation of this volume, I have
relied in myriad ways on the friendship of Rev. Mark Henninger, S. J.
And throughout, he has had a calming, sage influence on my work.
None of these persons bears any responsibility, however, for the inevita-
ble mistakes that have evaded their diligent scrutiny.
I am very grateful to all involved in the publication of the Medieval
& Renaissance Texts & Studies series. In particular, I thank the general
editor of the series. Professor Mario Di Cesare, the professional referees
xn Preface
of my manuscript who made fine suggestions, and the diligent MRTS
staff, all of whom provided invaluable assistance. Finally, I am most for-
tunate to have three brothers who always offer me the broadest support,
especially in the inevitable moments of self-doubt that accompany
scholarly writing. Thus, it is to Tom, to Dave, and to Pat that I dedicate
this book, and not only in the hope that it may spur them to buy me a
draft when next we meet.
Abbreviations
The abbreviations for classical authors and works are taken from A
Latin Dictionary, edited by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1962), vii-xi; and A Greek-English
Lexicon, edited by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1953), xvi-xli.
BAV Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
BMC A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century Now in
the British Museum. Edited by R. Proctor and A. W. Pollard.
12 vols. London, 1908-.
Copinger W. A. Copinger. Supplement to Main's Repertorium Bihlio-
graphicum. Part 2, Additions. 2 vols. London, 1898-1906.
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna, 1886-.
CTC Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum. Edited by P.
O. Kristeller and F. Edward Cranz. Washington, D.C.:
Catholic Univ. of America Press, I960-.
DBI Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. Rome: Istituto della En-
ciclopedia Italiana, I960-.
Epist. Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio. Edited by Leonardo Smith.
Fonti per la storia d'ltalia pubblicate dall'Istituto storico ita-
liano per il Medio Evo 74. Rome, 1934.
GW Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke. Leipzig, 1925-.
Hain Ludovicus Hain. Repertorium Bibliographicum. Berlin, 1925.
IGI Indice generale degli incunaboli delle biblioteche d'ltalia. 6 vols.
Rome, 1943-81.
IMU Italia medioevale ed umanistica
xrv Abbreviations
Iter Paul Oskar Kristeller. Iter Italicum. 6 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1963-91.
PL Patrologia Latina. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. Paris, 1844-
64.
PPV Pierpaolo Vergerio the elder
RIS Rerum Italicarum scriptores. Edited by Ludovico Antonio
Muratori. Milan, 1723-51; n.s., Citta di Castello and Bolo-
gna, 1900-.
s.t. sine typographo (Publisher unknown)
Pierpaolo Vergerio the Elder
The Humanist as Orator
CHAPTER 1
lustinopolitanus
Sometime between 1368 and 1370, Pierpaolo Vergerio the elder was
born to Ser Vergerio di Giovanni de' Vergeri and Ysabeta degli
Azoni, who had married in 1360. Despite extensive research, scholars
have been unable to fix the precise year of Vergerio's birth. ^ Shrouded
in mystery, it is like many details of Vergerio's private life. His surviv-
ing letters, which run to over four hundred pages in the modern edition,
reflect his careful creation of a public personality. Vergerio permitted
only rare glimpses of his private life. For example, Vergerio told us vir-
tually nothing of his lineage or kinship. Later descendants traced the
roots of the family to Verzerio III Luzzago, who led Brescian troops in
storming the castle of San Martino di Gavardo in 1121. The memories
of such feudal exploits show the family's tendency to justify a nobility
that they only achieved in 1430. Vergerio's father worked as a notary
' In "The Year of Leonardo Bruni's Birth and Methods for Determining the Ages of
Humanists Bom in the Trecento," Speculum 52 (1977): 599-604, Hans Baron systematically
reexamined the evidence and argued for a date of birth in 1368 or 1369. Vergerio asserted
{Epist, 373) that Francesco Zabarella was not quite ten years older than himself, and
Leonardo Smith {Epist, xiii n. 1) summarizes the documentary evidence which establishes
that Zabarella was bom on 10 August 1360. Secondly, Baron cited the statutes of the
University of Bologna from 1405, which required that a professor be twenty years old, and
Vergerio is listed on the university rolls in 1388. The contrary evidence derives from a state-
ment of Leonardo Bruni that Vergerio was much older than he {Commentarius, RIS, n.s.,
19.3:432). Baron determined that Bruni actually was bom in March of 1370 and interpreted
Bruni's statement as a reflection of psychological inferiority before Vergerio's significant
achievements. According to Baron, the two humanists were at most a few years apart in age.
Baron rightly discarded the date of 23 July 1370 for Vergerio's birth because it represents
an interpolation by a seventeenth-century biographer, perhaps Bartolomeo Petronio (see the
Epist, 471). See also Giovanni Calo, "Nota vergeriana: II De ingenuis moribus e il supposto
precettorato del Vergerio alia corte di Francesco Novello," Rinascita 2 (1939): 226-28.
2 CHAPTER 1
and managed through his professional activities and his wife's dowry to
create a comfortable life for his family in Capodistria.^
Two childhood experiences, one of festive celebration and another of
desperate flight, seared themselves into Pierpaolo Vergerio's memory.
He connected both of them to the family's devotion to a local Christian
hero, Saint Jerome. Vergerio harbored especially happy memories of a
celebration on 30 September, when his family annually commemorated
the feast of Saint Jerome.
After my parents had attended the sacred rites celebrated in the
appropriate and customary manner, they were accustomed for as
long as their resources permitted (and they had clear memories
that their own ancestors had done the same thing continuously
on this feast day) to offer a solemn banquet for the indigent of
the city. They attended first of all to the poor and then extended
their largesse to friends, relatives, and domestic servants, thereby
expressing their loyalty to the latter and their compassion toward
the former. Insofar as my parents had the means to pay the costs
of such a celebration, they eagerly desired to make all the others
share in their own joy. We happily marked the feast day in pub-
lic and private rituals. Now, however, after hostile fortune turned
against us, unleashing war's destructive powers, only the desire
remains. The celebration itself has ceased. Nevertheless, although
I regret having nothing greater to offer in my state of poverty, I
have vowed that, as long as I live, I will review the praises and
excellent merits of Jerome in a speech before an assembly of the
best citizens.^
^ Leonardo Smith, Epist., xi-xiii, 9-12 n. 1. Ysabeta degli Azoni was the daughter of
Pietro degli Azoni, a citizen of Capodistria. Her new dowry contract was drafted before the
podesta in 1383. Ysabeta brought her husband property valued at eight hundred lihri
parvorum as well as five hundred libri parvorum in coins. On the noble status achieved by
Vergerio di Simone (1430) and Colmano (1431), see Smith, Epist, 465 n. 3, 476-77 n. 3; Gre-
gorio De Totto, "II patriziato di Capodistria," Atti e memorie della Societa istriana di
archeologia e storia patria 49 (1937): 149-50; and Gedeone Pusterla, / nobili di Capodistria e
dell'Istria con cenni storico-hnografici (2d ed. Capodistria, 1888), 18-19. For the capture of S.
Martino di Gavardo, see also Alfredo Bosisio, "II Comune," in Dalle origini alia caduta della
signoria viscontea (1426), vol. 1 of Storia di Brescia (Brescia, 1963), 587-88.
^ See PPV, Sermo 5 pro Sancto Hieronymo: "Solebantparentes mei,dum fortuna letaeque
res starent, atque id a suis fieri solitum commemorabant perpetuo hoc ipso festo die, cum
sacra ritu debito et solito more peracta essent, sollemne convivium pauperibus facere — his
quidem primum, tum et amicis, familiaribus atque domesticis hominibus — quo et in illos
pietas et in hos alacritas funderetur. Omnes enim, quoad poterant et facultates suae ferre su-
stinebant, gaudii sui studebant participes facere. Dies hie et foris et domi laetus agebatur.
lustinopolitanus 3
As Vergerio indicates, those idyllic days of family celebration ended
abruptly during the War of Chioggia (1378-1381). The war pitted
Venice against Genoa and embroiled the smaller states of northern Italy
in the conflict as the two republics battled for commercial dominance.
The Vergerio family, who lived in a small town of the Venetian Empire,
found themselves dragged into the hostilities. That experience constitut-
ed the second of Vergerio's vivid childhood memories. In 1380 Genoese
troops raided the Istrian peninsula and set the torch to Capodistria itself.
Vergerio de' Vergeri gathered up his family and fled into exile. The fam-
ily eventually reached Cividale del Friuli and took refuge there for the
next two years. And their patron saint did not abandon them in their
hour of need.
You no doubt recall, father, the miracles that Jerome worked on
our behalf, miracles which I saw with my own eyes. During that
wartime clash, when all were filled with terror and matters
rushed toward destruction, who snatched us alive from multiple
ambushes prepared against us? Who carried us safe and sound
from the devastation and smoldering ashes of our depopulated
homeland? Or, after we had left our ancestral land and received
a friendly welcome on foreign soil, who carried us back home
and assured our reintegration there in safety? Who finally saved
your life, when under a sentence of death and exposed to such
great dangers? Who else but the patron to whom we had commit-
ted ourselves!"*
Nunc vero, postquam bellicis fragoribus inimica fortuna res arbitrio suo vertit, mansit
animus, cessit mos. Ego autem, qui nihil maius in tanta egestate quod tribuam habeo, de-
crevi singulo anno dum vixero laudes Hieronymi et praeclara merita in conventu optimo-
rum recensere. Si quando tamen fortuna placido vultu faverit, ne vetustum quidem morem
familiae nostrae praetermittam."
* Epist, 186-87: "Nam, ut omittam cetera, quae, ante illam tempestatem toti fere orbi
cognitam, in qua et nos naufragium passi essemus nisi illius affuisset subsidium, certa de eo
erga nos miracula recensebas, et ad ea veniam quae ipsemet vidi, quis nos eo belli fragore,
quo cuncta terrebantur, cuncta / ruebant, ex tot paratis insidiis vivos eripuit? quis ex patriae
populatae minis, ardentis cineribus, sanos et tutos evexit? aut quis patrium solum egressos
ac in alieno benigne receptos olim in patriam et revexit ac in tuto reposuit? quis denique
caput tuum damnatum, tot periculis expositum, nisi is cui fuerat commendatum, servavit
incolume?" For the effects of the war on the Venetian regime, see Reinhold C. Mueller,
"Effetti della Guerra di Chioggia (1378-1381) sulla vita economica e sociale di Venezia,"
Ateneo veneto, n.s., 19 (1981): 35-40; and Dennis Romano, Patricians and "Popolani": The
Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance State (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins
Univ. Press, 1987), 19, 28, 32-34, 128-29, 154-55.
4 CHAPTER 1
Later in life, Pierpaolo Vergerio nurtured pleasant memories of those
two years in exile. Cividale del Friuli, set in a fertile valley, had citizens
who showed themselves most benevolent toward his family.^ The war,
however, had forever changed their status. Much of their patrimony was
lost in the Genoese sack. Moreover, Vergerio's father had to account to
the victorious Venetian authorities for fleeing to the territory of the pa-
triarch of Aquileia, an ally of the Genoese. He almost lost his life, and
he never succeeded in fully recovering his financial resources. At various
junctures in the next twenty years, the family sold off properties to
meet expenses. Vergerio's letters to wealthy friends often express his
concern for the "most opulent misery" in which his parents had now to
live.^ The banquet in Jerome's honor remained a conscious ideal, which
Vergerio promised to revive if ever fortune's wheel might again spin in
the family's favor. However, from the experiences of his childhood, Ver-
gerio had learned that it was futile to struggle against fortune.'' Only
the beneficence of a patron like Jerome had mitigated fortune's sting.
Vergerio's cult of Jerome, a "local" saint, was one of the remarkably
long-lived customs that Mediterraneans observed to commemorate the
death of beloved ones. Those customs transcended the artificial bounds
of institutionalized belief in order to express the deepest impulses of a
common humanity.^ Like their Roman ancestors, the Vergerio family
held a memorial banquet to mark the day of Jerome's birth to the after-
life. While Vergerio never failed to honor that birthday, he left no indi-
^ EpisL, xii-xiv, 100-101 ("Nam posteaquam puer, eversa natali patria, Forumiulii bien-
nio cum parentibus incolui, ubi, quod semper prae me feram, et humanitate multa / et bene-
ficiis plurimis comiter habiti, in summa calamitate fuimus, ita quidem penitus animo meo
inhaesit sedes ilia terrarum ut postea semper loco patriae mihi haberetur"). For the strategic
and commercial importance of the patriarchate of Aquileia, see Denys Hay and John Law,
Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1380-1530, Longman History of Italy (London and New
York: Longman, 1989), 232-36.
* Epist., 9-11, 30, and esp. 141-42: "Parentes mei, ut plerique, ex angustia rei domesticae
abire inde non possunt. Quamquam, O Deus, quid dixi angustiam, et non potius / summam
atque opulentissimam miseriam?" Such letters constitute appeals for financial help. For the
sale of properties, see the comments of Smith, ibid., lln. The fact that Vergerio's mother
petitioned for a new dowry record in 1383 may have been an effort to save her possessions
from the family's creditors.
^ Epist, 6-7.
* I am applying insights from the stimulating essay of Peter Brown, The Cult of the
Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago,
1981), which treats of the use of that cult by the elite of late Roman antiquity to enhance
their political control. Affluent Christians of that era used funeral banquets as a way to
assist the poor; see D. W. O'Connor, Peter in Rome: The Literary, Liturgical and Archeologi-
cal Evidence (New York and London: Columbia Univ. Press, 1969), 148-49.
lustinopolitanus
cation of the date of his own birth. During the funerary banquet for the
saint, the Vergerio family set aside the prevailing social distinctions of
their world, as ancient Christians had done at the tombs of their heroes.
For one brief moment, in deference to their powerful patron and his di-
vine lord, class boundaries were ignored. The poor and the domestic ser-
vants joined the family for their meal. As a small boy, Vergerio imbibed
ideals of solidarity at a table set in charity.
Yet such solidarity did not challenge the overarching structure of de-
pendence suggested in the rite. Jerome functioned as a heavenly patron
for the city of Capodistria as well as for the Vergerio household. The
family first attended the public celebration of the feast in church before
continuing that celebration in their own private ritual. The Vergerio
family could never claim Jerome as their personal property; the cult had
assumed a civic character. It would make no sense to attempt to use
Jerome as the inspiration for rebellion against Venetian authority. Thus,
the piety of the family tended to reinforce assumptions about legitimate
imperial rule. The powerful Jerome had acted beneficently on behalf of
his pious clients. Similarly, Venice's governing patricians acted benefi-
cently toward loyal citizens in places like Capodistria. The basic move-
ment of efficacious government was downward, from a magnanimous
elite toward a populace in need. Ideals of unanimity and concord then
spread horizontally outward from that basic vertical impulse.
The history of Venetian dealings with Vergerio's hometown reflected
such dynamics. In 1279, after centuries of close political collaboration,
Venice had fully incorporated Capodistria into her burgeoning maritime
empire. The entire Istrian peninsula supplied important necessities for
the capital city. By ruling Istria, Venice assured herself a supply of agri-
cultural products, of stone resistant to salt air, and of prostitutes to meet
the steady demand of a port city. Meanwhile, the subject city of Capodi-
stria managed to gain important privileges by exploiting the dialectic of
cooperation and resistance. Collaboration in the early years of Venetian
involvement led in 1182 to the designation of Capodistria as the sole un-
loading port for salt between Grado and Promontore. An unsuccessful
rebellion in 1348 induced the Venetian government to grant Capodistria
greater local autonomy.' In both cases a generous patron had ultimately
' On the relations between Venice and Capodistria, see Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A
Maritime Republic (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1973), 59-60; Fran-
cesco Semi, Capodistria: Guida storica ed artistica con illustrazioni (Capodistria, [1930]), 5-6,
8-10; Laura Gorlato, "La Repubblica di Venezia e le sue relazioni commerciali con la
6 CHAPTER 1
acted with mercy toward her cHent: that ancient social relationship still
structured much of Vergerio's political society.
Vergerio's parents had embraced Jerome as their saintly protector, to
whom they might turn in a daily quest for safety and especially in times
of crisis. The devotion of his parents led Vergerio to a relationship of
special intimacy with Jerome, for Jerome became not only a patron and
friend but increasingly an exemplar, who spurred him' to progress in
learning. The embrace did not spare Vergerio from experiencing vulner-
ability in a world marked by violent injustice. Notwithstanding a flour-
ishing cult of local saints, Capodistria was destroyed by Genoese troops.
To humiliate the city and its Venetian overlord, the enemy forces delib-
erately destroyed the most telling symbols of civic life. They burned the
Municipal Palace where the Venetian podesta resided, and they stole the
relics of Saints Alexander and Nazarius before torching the cathedral. ^°
A latter-day Aeneas, Vergerio's father snatched his family from the
burning ruins of the patria and led them into temporary exile.
During those traumas, however, Jerome did not abandon his devo-
tees. He enveloped them in a mantle of protection during the flight,
paved the way for their friendly reception in Cividale del Friuli, and
then led them safely back to Capodistria in 1382. Once again, Pierpaolo
Vergerio felt the sinister force of violence in his world. The restored
Venetian authorities had condemned his father in absentia for treason
because he had obtained refuge in a city allied with the Genoese. And
once again, the family's patron saint intervened to assure that Vergerio's
father would benefit from a wider amnesty. The condemnation was
lifted after Vergerio's father had sworn loyalty to the Venetian re-
gime. ^^ Vergerio envisioned in his mind's eye the sufferings of exodus
and alienation that Jerome miraculously turned into occasions of protec-
tion and reintegration. Jerome had graciously fulfilled his role as patron
by appealing to the divinity to use divine power on behalf of devoted
clients.
penisola istriana dal XI al XIII secolo," Pagine istriane 3-4 (1986): 19-21, 24, 27; and Guido
Ruggiero, TTje Boundaries of Eros: Sex, Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, Studies in
the History of Sexuality 1 (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985), 41-42.
'° The relics were restored to Capodistria in 1422. Hymns written for that occasion
were erroneously attributed to Vergerio; see Smith, Epist., 506.
" Smith, Epist, 187 n. 1, cites a document dated 8 January 1382, in which Marino
Memmo, the Venetian podesta, informed Doge Andrea Contarini (1368-82) that a group of
exiles had asked for pardon upon returning to Capodistria and had promised perpetual
loyalty to Venice. The group included Vergerio de' Vergerii.
lustinopolitanus
Jerome, therefore, functioned as a political force, righting injustice
through acts of mercy. Vergerio saw those actions as evidence for the
abundant mercy of God; as Peter Brown well stated, such acts were a
"silver lining of amnesty" in the dark cloud of disorder and violence. ^^
Through the local legend that Jerome had grown up in Sdregna, a small
town in the diocese of Capodistria, the young Vergerio possessed a phys-
ical link to the area's perennial hero.^^ Through a vow to deliver a
panegyric on the feast of Jerome, no matter where he found himself, the
mature Vergerio sought to create a more reliable tie to his patron. The
general etiquette of a patronage relationship acquired even deeper signifi-
cance through a binding commitment freely made. Preaching offered a
flexible means to maintain intimate companionship across physical dis-
tance. In effect, Vergerio forced Jerome to travel with him. Morever, as
Vergerio gradually discovered, preaching also offered him a means to dif-
fuse the power of Jerome's presence to a wider world. He could urge
others to imitate the most virtuous qualities of that patron. Vergerio
entered the extended family of Jerome, armed with ideals of concord
and solidarity for a world riven by social dependencies. By depending
on a heavenly patron, Vergerio ultimately gained a healthy measure of
independence for himself. During the moments of anxiety generated by
his own uprootedness and insecurity, Vergerio found Jerome a consoling
presence.
The rough antitheses proposed in Vergerio's earliest panegyrics for
Jerome reflect Vergerio's own emerging values as he matured from
childhood to adolescence. Vergerio admired Jerome's consistent choice
of the upright course of action, which often defied the common wisdom
of his world. By rating himself a poor learner, Jerome had made himself
well equipped to teach others. By choosing a hermitage in Bethlehem,
" Brown, Cult of Saints, 91.
" On phonetic grounds, a medieval tradition identified Jerome's birthplace of Stridon
with Sdregna (or Sdrigna in Italian). The tradition is recorded in loannes Andreae, Hierony-
mianus, cod. Ottob. lat. 480, 16; and Flavio Biondo, Italia illustrata, 387-88. The tiny town
(oppidulum) is located to the southeast of Capodistria, in the center of the Istrian peninsula
between Pinguente and Portole. In 1828, Slavic Zrenj (or Zrinj) became part of the diocese
of Trieste, when that diocese absorbed the bishopric of Capodistria. Koper (Capodistria)
reacquired the status of a separate diocese in 1977. The exact location of Stridon is still a
mystery. See J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (New York:
Harper & Row, 1975), 3-5; and Giuseppe Cuscito, Cristianesimo antico ad Aquileia e in
Istria, Fonti e studi per la storia della Venezia Giulia: Studi, n.s., 3 (Trieste: Deputazione di
storia patria per la Venezia Giulia, 1977), 233-38. For Vergerio's sermons on Jerome, see
chapter 8 below.
8 CHAPTER 1
Jerome had renounced certain election to the office of pope. Jerome had
fled the city of Rome to be of benefit to the entire world. ^'* The last
antithesis had a special appeal for Vergerio, providing him with a model
of the mobility necessary for scholarly activity. Jerome left his tiny
hometown of Stridon for Rome in order to study Latin grammar and
become a better person. He left Rome when attacks by his jealous rivals
destroyed his inner peace. From Rome he sailed for Greece, where he
polished his considerable philological skills under the guidance of
Gregory of Nazianzus. He finally embraced the life of a monk in Beth-
lehem. Throughout his journey, Jerome had demonstrated detachment
from material goods and patriotic sentiments; such detachment allowed
his commitment to intellectual and moral priorities to flourish.^^ Ver-
gerio admired Jerome's willingness to travel, and he justified his own
journeys by comparing himself to his hero.
Vergerio had discovered that he could not fulfill his great ambitions
in a small town like Capodistria. "From boyhood the conviction took
root in my soul that, were I able to live safely and protect my integrity,
I would renounce my homeland." In letters written throughout his life
and in a short, unfinished treatise, Vergerio expressed his ambivalent
feelings toward his place of birth. ^^ Capodistria's setting in the gulf of
'"^ See, e.g., PPV, Sermo 1: "Factus est enim iustissimus, dum se semper existimat pecca-
torem, evenitque de ipso quod de alio ipsemet scribit, quod, dum se pauperem semper ad
discendum credit, ad docendum locupletissimum se fecit. Ecce enim dum Romae ex suis
meritis atque virtutibus dignus ab om <n > ibus summo sacerdotio creditur, ipse se dignum
credidit qui in eremum iret ad sua peccata deflenda; dumque doctissimus ab omnibus et
haberetur et diceretur, tunc demum Gregorio Nazianzeno se tradidit in disciplinam. Ex
quibus factum est ut non tam summo pontificatu, ad quem etiam indigni pervenire possunt,
quam regno caelorum, quo nullus pertingit indignus, se dignissimum redderet, et qui, si aliis
forsitan de se credidisset, auctor plurimis fuisset erroris, humiliter de se sentiens, doctor
factus est veritatis. . . ." See also PPV, Sermo 5 (dated 1392): "Hie cum esset in amplissimo
gradu dignitatis, cum Romae optimus et doctissimus celebraretur, abiit potius et monasterii
parietibus se inclusit; fugiens (quod tunc pulcherrimum et praecipuum in orbe erat) Romam,
secessit in desertam solitudinem. ..."
'^ See especially PPV, Sermo 6, which is structured upon an antithesis between Jerome's
place of birth and his service to the entire Christian world ("Nihil igitur apud eum aut
amor patriae aut attinentium caritas domusve aut vitae prioris consuetudo valuit quin pro
eremo patriam, pro monasterio domum, pro monachis attinentes et notos vitamque civilem
pristinam pro austerissima eremo commutaret"). In the panegyrics, Vergerio followed the
chronology of Jerome's life as traditionally elaborated in medieval biographies; see Eugene
Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press,
1985), 25-28.
'^ EpisL, 147: "Atque ita mihi a puero ea sententia animo stetit ut, si honeste tutoquc
possim, patriam negem." See further Epist, 7, 27, 30, 36-37, 123-24, 126, 138-40, and 142-
51; and De situ urbis lustinopolitanae, RIS 16:240A-41D. Vergerio's attitude toward Capo-
distria is discussed by Maria Pia Billanovich, "Bernardino Parenzano e le origini di Capo-
lustinopolitanus
Trieste and its Roman past left him with a mild sense of pride. Especial-
ly when approached by sea, the city stood forth in the natural beauty of
its setting on a rocky projection in an inlet surrounded by cliffs of white
stone. Vergerio noted that the optical illusion, whereby those cliffs
seemed shaped like a goat, may explain the Greek name for the city,
Aegida. Though the common people foolishly explained Capodistria as
deriving from caput Istriae, given its proximity to the border of Istria at
the Risano River, Vergerio intuited that the correct etymology derived
from a Latin rendering of the expression "Istrian goat" {capris Istriae). In
addition to the Latin etymology, Vergerio also pointed to historical evi-
dence that linked his region closely to Rome. The emperor Augustus
had extended the boundaries of the province of Italy to include the
Istrian peninsula, and Vergerio had seen archaeological remains from
Roman antiquity during his visits to nearby Trieste.
Vergerio was particularly intrigued to discover when and why people
had begun to call the city lustinopolis. Some claimed that the name
should be traced to the emperor Justin II (565-578), though Vergerio
could find no documentary or epigraphical evidence to verify that
hypothesis. Others saw it as an association with the historian lustinus,
who had narrated the legendary settlement of the Colchians in Istria
after their unsuccessful attempt to recover the golden fleece. Vergerio
favored this explanation, though he also offered the possibility that the
name derived from some unknown lustinus. Vergerio's investigations to
establish the correct etymology of Capodistria and lustinopolis reveal
the characteristics of his historical methods. He sought evidence to
defend his conclusions in documents and in archaeological remains such
as inscriptions. In the absence of conclusive evidence, he offered multi-
ple hypotheses. The more popular an explanation was among the com-
mon people, the less Vergerio tended to trust it.
Closer scrutiny of the city and personal experience of its political life
gave Vergerio sufficient cause to dislike his hometown. He felt that geo-
graphical liabilities affected the moral quality of life in Capodistria. Like
classical theorists, Vergerio suggested a close tie between environment
and moral behavior.^'' To reach the city by land, one had to cross a
distria," IMU 14 (1971): l(i3-70, and David Robey, "Aspetti deirumanesimovergeriano," in
Vittore Branca and Sante Graciotti, eds., L'umanesimo in Istria, Civilta veneziana: Studi 38
(Florence: Olschki, 1983), 8.
'^ Ciceronian descriptions of cities like Athens and Thebes suggested that living condi-
tions to a significant extent shaped human temperament; see Cicero Fat. 4.7. The corpus of
10 CHAPTER 1
narrow path through a fetid swamp formed by silt deposits from the
Risano River. That situation offered a possible explanation why the
Slavs had chosen the name Koper for the city. Koper constituted a Slavic
cognate derived from the Greek words for dung {kopros) or dunghill
{kopria). Capodistria's infected air caused fever among the inhabitants.
Those physical maladies in turn produced negative moral effects. The
city was riddled by dissension as factions favorable and opposed to
Venetian hegemony played a bloody game of dominance. ^^
Vergerio, therefore, looked upon the Istrian area as "undistin-
guished" [ignobilis) and Capodistria as "luckless" {infausta). Having
experienced misfortune as a child in Capodistria, Vergerio eventually
saw that quality as endemic to the town where he had grown up.
Capodistria lacked precisely those qualities that would make an urban
setting ideal for the practice of public service: his city had no knowledge
{scientia) and love for virtue, and consequently gave no reward to those
who pursued that worthy combination of learning and moral living.
Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna, a cherished mentor, once objected to
Vergerio 's negative characterization of Capodistria. By way of rebuttal,
Conversini cited Jerome as an example of an excellent man who had
grown up in the region. Vergerio granted that Jerome's prestige in-
creased the historical significance of his region. In the end, however,
Jerome too had left the region to pursue virtue and acquire fame. Great
deeds needed a sufficient public or they would never have their inspira-
tional impact. Even Conversini admitted that the Istrian peninsula was
so isolated that scholars who resided there found themselves with little
to do. That led many to drink heavily in order to compensate for their
boredom.
Vergerio moved frequently early in life, following the example set by
his patron Jerome. The most plausible reconstruction of his activities in
Hippocrates included a short work entitled On Airs, Waters, Places which explored the
effects of climate and locale on health and on ethnic and cultural differences; see Edwin
Burton Levine, Hippocrates, World Author Series 165 (New York: Twayne Publishers,
1971), 128-50. In general, see the trenchant observations of Ann C. Vasaly, Representations:
Images of the World in Ciceronian Rhetoric (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: Univ. of
California Press, 1993), 131-55.
'* Epist., 146-47: "Cum enim a maioribus meis audiissem, qua ilia dignitate urbs totaque
erat quondam provincia, qua fortuna res publica quaque virtute homines, tum postea et
vidissem puer et sensissem praesens, qua esset miseria, quo exterminio, qua calamitate, indi-
gna res mihi visa est planeque miseranda. Cum autem praefuisse et dura odia et seditiones
graves et tectas inter se civium simultates accepissem, notaremque in dies / magis mores
atque animos hominum, non frustra evenisse omnia vitio suo iudicavi."
lustinopolitanus 11
the decade beginning in 1380 involves extensive travels. By the decade's
end, Vergerio was surely a skilled horseman.^' In 1380, he left Capodi-
stria for political exile in Cividale del Friuli. The family returned to
Capodistria in 1382, when his father felt confident of obtaining a pardon
from Venice. There are indications that in 1384 Vergerio visited Aqui-
leia, returning to Capodistria shortly thereafter. An early biographer
posited that Vergerio resided in Padua in 1385 in order to study Latin
grammar, and it seems virtually certain that Vergerio taught dialectic in
Florence from 1386 to 1387.^° In the first months of 1388, Vergerio
transferred his teaching activities to the University of Bologna; during
the summer recess, however, he returned home to Capodistria. He
stopped in Padua before returning to Bologna in the fall of 1388 to
resume his teaching duties. In the spring of 1390, he fled an outbreak of
the plague in Bologna and sought refuge in Capodistria. By May, he had
returned to the University of Bologna, which he definitively abandoned
late in 1390 in order to matriculate at Padua. Vergerio almost always
traveled because his educational activities, which shaped his priorities
throughout his adolescence, required that he do so.
Such mobility took an emotional toll on the young traveler. Verge-
rio's letters reflected an only child's anxiety for the well-being of his
parents. Every time he left Capodistria, his parents had to fend for
themselves.^^ Furthermore, Vergerio maintained his freedom to move
about by choosing not to marry. His father had urged his son to consid-
er marriage as a potential economic investment; an ample dowry could
help to restore the family's affluence. Vergerio admitted the wisdom of
his father's advice, but money wasn't that important to him. Bachelor-
hood helped to assure Vergerio 's liberty; as a bachelor, he could pursue
his studies without distraction. Moreover, he was timid with women,
and he thought them domineering. With respectful regret, Vergerio
decided to reject his father's recommendation. He could hardly claim to
be concerned for the poverty of his parents if he simply dismissed his
The following chronology is based upon the reconstruction of Smith, Epist., xii-xiv,
3-46. Cf. ibid., 210-11, for Vergerio's experiences in Rome in 1398, when his riding skills
helped him avoid serious trouble.
^ Ronald Witt graciously shared with me the typescript of an article entitled "Still the
Matter of the Two Giovannis," which will be published in Rinascimento. In that study,
Witt posits that, during this Florentine sojourn, Vergerio may well have studied rhetoric
under the tutelage of Giovanni Malpaghini da Ravenna.
^' See, e.g., Epist., 30: "Magis me gravat et maxime torquet parentum inopia, qui non
aeque patienter ut vellem incommoda sua ferunt."
12 CHAPTER 1
father's proposal. Thus, he conceded that he would take a wife, but only
if his father ordered him to do so, which never happened. The entire
experience gave the son a renewed appreciation for the respect shown to
him by a tolerant father. Rather than compel Vergerio to act against his
wishes, his father had left the decision in his hands.^
Not surprisingly, Vergerio battled loneliness in those years on the
move. At times, he attempted to overcome his isolation by embracing a
Stoic asceticism. More frequently, he sought to create a circle of friends
through his correspondence. His insistent requests for letters more than
once irritated his acquaintances. Still, he pressed them for some form of
response. Some of those friendships seem more the product of Verge-
rio's willpower than of mutual esteem. Other friendships proved to be
genuine and supportive. While Vergerio was teaching dialectic in Flor-
ence, he came to know Coluccio Salutati and Francesco Zabarella. Those
two older scholars remained a fundamental influence upon Vergerio 's
life until their deaths in 1406 and 1417 respectively. In important ways
Salutati and Zabarella exemplified for Vergerio alternative responses to
the question of the intellectual's role in society. Salutati had capitalized
on his rhetorical skills to gain employment in the government of
various communes and ultimately won appointment as chancellor of the
Florentine Republic; he thereby established himself as undisputed leader
of the humanist avant-garde. Zabarella, on the other hand, found his
opportunity within the intellectual establishment; as a cleric he taught
canon law at the University of Florence and later at Padua. Both men-
tors will play an important role in the story to unfold.^^ Vergerio in-
^ Epist., 131-37. Cf. ibid., 155-56, 182-83, where Vergerio comments further on
women; and ibid., 481-82, where evidence suggests that Vergerio commended Charondas,
the Catanian lawgiver (sixth century BC), for outlawing a second marriage. Vergerio felt
that, if a first marriage made one unhappy, it was insane to try again.
^ For Salutati's career, see Berthold Louis Ullman, 77?e Humanism of Coluccio Salutati,
Medioevo e umanesimo 4 (Padua: Antenore, 1963); and Ronald G. Witt, Hercules at the
Crossroads: The Life, Works, and Thought of Coluccio Salutati, Duke Monographs in Medieval
and Renaissance Studies 6 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1983). Gasparo Zonta's biog-
raphy of Zabarella, Francesco Zabarella (1360-1417) (Padua, 1915), should be supplemented
by Thomas E. Morrissey, "Emperor-Elect Sigismund, Cardinal Zabarella, and the Council
of Constance," The Catholic Historical Review 69 (1983): 353-70; Morrissey, "Franciscus
Zabarella (1360-1417): Papacy, Community, and Limitations Upon Authority," in Guy
Fitch Lytle, ed.. Reform and Authority in the Medieval arui Reformation Church (Washington,
D.C.: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1981), 37-54; Agostino Sottili, "Laquestione cicero-
niana in una lettera di Francesco Zabarella a Francesco Petrarca (tav. IV)," Quademi per la
storia dell'Universita di Padova 6 (1973): 30-38; Annalisa Belloni, Professori giuristi a Padova
nel secolo XV: Prqfili bio-bibliograftci e cattedre, lus Commune: Studien zur europaischen
Rechtsgeschichte 28 (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann, 1986), 204-8; and the forthcom-
lustinopolitanus 13
creasingly focused his studies in an effort to bridge the gap between the
academic and political worlds.
The disruptive experiences of his childhood continued to affect
Vergerio's sensitivities as he matured. In what may be his earliest letter,
written around the age of fifteen, Vergerio indicated that he had origi-
nally desired to become a merchant {negotiator) in order to assure finan-
cial security. By seeking the guidance of a successful merchant, Vergerio
hoped to acquire the skills of a shrewd businessman and go from pover-
ty to quick wealth.^"* Vergerio soon lost interest in the life of a mer-
chant; however, his experience taught him to attend to the internal dis-
positions typical of various stages in human development. When Verge-
rio wrote that letter, he had already begun to reflect on the psychology
of learning. Vergerio noticed that new apprentices burned with a curiosi-
ty to learn as much as possible about their prospective trade. Their zeal,
however, was tempered by the repetitive discipline required to master a
trade. Educators needed to exploit the enthusiasm of youth for the
novelty of learning and ease them through the boredom that inevitably
followed.^^ Deciding not to become a merchant, Vergerio found his
first job as a tutor of dialectic in Florence from 1386 to 1387.^^
ing monograph by Girgensohn (mentioned by Belloni). For examples of Vergerio's insistent
requests for friendship, see his letters to Santo de' Pellegrini, Antonio Baruffaldi, and Ugo
da Ferrara in Epist., 15-18, 20-23. Information on Santo de' Pellegrini is found in Attilio
Hortis, "Di Santo de' Pellegrini e di Blenghio de' Grilli lettera a Carlo de' Combi," Arch-
eografo triestino, ser. 2, 8 (1881-82): 407-8. Pellegrini, through his wife, was distantly related
to the Vergerio family and was a partisan of the cause of the patriarch of Aquileia.
^* EpisL, 3-5: "Nuper enim nescio quo artifice negotiator effectus, quaecumque / ad
huiuscemodi negotium necessaria sunt, quoad potero, undique adminicula conquirere statui,
quibus et dives et in futuris agibiVlibus quae ad me attinet cautus fiam." See also Baron,
"Year of Bruni's Birth," 604 n. 52.
^ Epist., 3: "Indulgentiori cura solent artifices novi, cum primum arti se cuipiam dede-
rint, quae ad artis suae pertineant rudimenta perquirere quam dum in ea desudaverint et
assuetudine fuerint confricati. Tunc etiam aut disciplinam nacti aut fastidio territi a sua
curiositate desistunt, quam prius errandi metu et ardore novo discendi indefesse tractaverant.
Consimilique modo et eadem causa infantes ac pueri omnia visendi, omnia audiendi cupidi
magis sunt quam ad virilem aetatem usque provecti. Illis enim tamquam noviter in lucem
editis omnia nova sunt, quae alii propter consuetudinem audire et videre parcius appetunt."
^* Epist, 243, where Vergerio notes that he taught dialectic in Florence as an adolescent
("dialecticam ibi iuvenis docui"), and ibid., 364, where, in a posthumous commemoration
for Francesco Zabarella written in 1417, he states that the two first met nearly thirty years
ago in Florence ("Florentiae ilium primum novi ante triginta fere annos"). Leonardo Smith,
Epist, xiv, and David Robey, "P. P. Vergerio the Elder: Republicanism and Civic Values in
the Work of an Early Italian Humanist," Past and Present, no. 58 (February 1973): 33, date
this Florentine sojourn to 1386-87. Calo, "Nota vergeriana," 228-29, felt that Vergerio
most likely taught as a private master, though he may have served as a tutor {ripetitore) for
a university professor.
14 CHAPTER 1
We have almost no information about Vergerio's studies prior to his
beginning to offer lessons in dialectic. Previous biographers have specu-
lated that he learned grammar and dialectic at schools in his hometown
of Capodistria (1382-1385) and at Padua (1385). Because Vergerio's
father had boarded his legal ward, Rantulfo del Tacco, at the school of
a local Paduan master, it may be that he attempted to arrange the same
opportunity for his son.^^ If so, Pierpaolo Vergerio would have com-
pleted his earliest studies as a boarding student in the home of his
master. The traditional curriculum in the Veneto included studying the
alphabet by using a primer, studying Latin grammar by using the
manual attributed to Donatus, and studying Latin stylistics by scrutiniz-
ing the works of such poets as Virgil, Lucan, and Terence. The use of
poetry in advanced grammatical studies had the further advantage of ex-
ercising a student's memory. Vergerio poured the money that he had
earned by tutoring students in dialectic back into his own further edu-
cation.
Whatever his preparation, Vergerio quickly acquired a love for the
Latin language. Vergerio's curiosity led him to trace his family name
from the Italian words for a type of cabbage {verze) and for an orchard
[verzierej to the equivalent Latin term for orchard, viridarium. In his
first writings, Vergerio occasionally signed himself as Vergerius Faciatus,
punning on the image of a well-tended garden. Significantly, he soon
abandoned that playful epithet and shifted to a title of greater classical
significance, Petruspaulus lustinopolitanus. The change reflects a growing
sense of historical consciousness vital to the humanist enterprise. Facia-
tus comprised a medieval Latin term unknown to the ancients; lustinopo-
litanus linked Vergerio to the Roman heritage of his hometown of
Capodistria. The change may well be the fruit of Vergerio's participa-
tion in the discussions of the circle of humanists, who met under Coluc-
cio Salutati's guidance at the convent of Santo Spirito during Vergerio's
first stay in Florence.^^ Vergerio gave further proof for his admiration
^^ Smith, Epist., xiv, who cites evidence in the biography of Vergerio attributed to Barto-
lomeo Petronio (ibid., 471: "Anno vero eiusdem 1385 post bellum Genuense lustinopoli
Paduam migravit, ubi primo grammaticam et dialecticam quemadmodum a iunioribus solet
didicit"). See ibid., 100-101 n. 1, 473n, for Vergerio de' Vergeri's trip to Padua in 1381 to
visit Rantulfo del Tacco. The basic course of grammatical studies is described in Paul F.
Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600 (Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989), 17, 29-33, 111-17.
^* Epist., 62-63, esp. 63 (Vergerio to Salutati): "Disputationem de virtute, qualem crebro
in conventu praesentium habere soles, litteris adhibe."
lustinopolitanus 15
for Salutati in his lengthiest autograph sample. In 1388, he copied from
the Latin translation of Calcidius those sections of Plato's Timaeus
which dealt with the physical powers of the body. The ductus is of high
quality, especially the brief colophon at the conclusion. And the script
closely mirrors elements of the new proposal for writing that Salutati
had launched in those same years. Vergerio wished to emulate the pres-
tigious chancellor in his avant-garde learning.^' Therefore, he wrote
according to Salutati's revision of Semigothic script and then signed him-
self Petruspaulus lustinopolitanus.
Eugenio Garin has characterized the last half of the fourteenth
century as the "heroic period of preparation" for the full birth of the
humanist movement. Vergerio was born into an epoch of violent
contrasts and significant struggles. According to his way of thinking, the
War of Chioggia had involved all the world's major powers. Periodic
outbreaks of plague and roaming bands of Christian zealots like the
Bianchi further disturbed his society. In response to the dislocations
caused by the War of Chioggia, the Venetian state had increasingly in-
truded into private affairs by extending its network of patronage.
Vergerio's earliest impressions of political power were shaped by the dy-
namic of such patronage. In his volatile world, Jerome had become a
reliable fixed point. Subsequently, Vergerio began to find dependable
^ The text is preserved in Venice, Bibl. Nazionale Marciana, cod. Marc. laL XIV.54 (4328),
fol. lOlr-v (reproduction in Smith, Epist, Tav. II facing 24). The Vergerio material is a separate
fascicle inserted into an autograph codex of Pietro da Montagnana. For Salutati's prc^xjsed reform,
see Berthold Louis Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome: Edizioni di
Storia e Letteratura, 1960), 13-19; Ullman, Humanism, 129-209; Armando Petrucci, II protocoUo
notarile di Coluccio Salutati (1372-73) (Milan: Giuffre, 1963), 21-45; and Albinia de la Mare, The
Handwriting of Italian Humanists (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), 1:30-43. Several characteris-
tics are typical of Salutati's reform: the sharp clarity, descenders below the line on minuscule/and
s, oscillation between miniscule d with or without a loop on the ascender (angled to the left),
varieties of final miniscule s, rustic maiuscule A, and a maiuscule N whose final stroke resembles
a /. Vei^erio retained the Gothic characteristic of fusing opposite curves, and he added loc^ on
the ascenders of minuscule h and /. He generally composed minuscule x in a single stroke. He
used the Tironian notes for et and con- and a paragraph sign that evolved from his majuscule S.
There is also a marginal correction in Vergerio's hand in a manuscript of the Gesta ma^ifica
domus Carrariensis, on which Vergerio drew heavily for his biographies of the Carrara; see the
reproduction in Roberto Cessi's edition, RIS, n.s., 17.1.2 (Tav. 1). I only recendy learned of
another group of manuscripts that apparently contain autograph glosses by Vei^erio. In Chapter
10 below, I discuss their importance as revealed in the study of Klara Csapodi-Gardonyi, Die
BMiothek des Johannes Vitiz, Studia Humanitatis-. Veroffentlichungen der Arbeitsgruppe fiir
Renaissanceforschung 6 (Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1984), 18-28. On the mistaken attribution
of other codices to Vei^rio, see the comments of Alessandro Perosa, "Per una nuova edizione
del Paulus del Vergerio," in Vittore Branca and Sante Graciotti, eds., L'umanesimo in Istria, Civilta
veneziana: Studi 38 (Florence: Olschki, 1983), 316-17.
16 CHAPTER 1
sources of support in intellectual mentors like Coluccio Salutati and
Francesco Zabarella. And he found the structures of Latin grammar {lit-
terae) a force for cohesion, which offered possibilities for verbal expres-
sion and moral persuasion. The seeds for his vocation as humanist had
been planted; however, before Vergerio could nurture them to fruition,
he first had to complete his university degree.^°
^ Eugenic Garin, "La cultura fiorentina nella seconda meta del '300 e i 'barbari Bri-
tanni,' " La rassegna della letteratura italiana 64 (1960): 181-82; and Michael Baxandall,
Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial
Composition 1350-1450, Oxford-Warburg Studies 6 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 7, 49.
CHAPTER 2
Adolescence
In 1388, when he was about twenty years old, Pierpaolo Vergerio
began to lecture in logic at the University of Bologna while he contin-
ued his own degree studies. Vergerio lived a life similar to that of a
graduate assistant in a modern American university and seemed to find
it just as unrewarding. He earned a minimal salary to offer a propaedeu-
tic course and juggled his teaching obligations with his efforts to
complete an advanced program.^ Previous scholars have had difficulty
in reconstructing the precise order and duration of Vergerio 's studies. In
general, he is fairly characterized as a professional student: one degree
usually led to the pursuit of another. The best evidence indicates that
Vergerio was engaged in studies at Bologna from 1388 to 1390, that he
also went for a time to Padua in 1388 "for the sake of his studies," that
his friend Santo de' Pellegrini addressed him with jocular respect as "a
doctor of arts lecturing on logic" during his years in Bologna, and that
the archdeacon of Bologna, Antonio Caetani, granted him a special
indult to take examinations there even though he could not pay the
required fees. Vergerio ended his sojourn at Bologna in the second half
' See Umberto Dallari, / rotuli dei lettori legisti e artisti dello Studio bolognese dal 1384 al
1799 (Bologna, 1888-91; repr. Bologna, 1919-24), 1:7 (cited by Leonardo Smith, Epist., 22-23
n. 1), where Vergerio is listed among the lecturers in the Arts Faculty of the University of
Bologna in the year 1388-89: "Ad lecturam loycae, Magister Petruspaulus electus pro Uni-
versitate." Like most lecturers, Vergerio earned a salary of fifty lire bolognesi. The university
also had "grammarians" attached to the teaching faculty; they received the same pay to
teach an introductory course in Latin to students about to pursue a university degree. See,
in general, Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600
(Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989), 26-29.
18 CHAPTER 2
of 1390 because he had transferred to the University of Padua as a
"doctor of arts" by May of 1391. ^
Vergerio has left us a clearer record of his state of mind during those
years at the University of Bologna. In the winter of 1389, he confided
the level of his frustrations to his fellow Capodistrian, Santo de' Pelle-
grini.
With Seneca and Cicero for your companions, you lead your
tranquil life, you manifest firm self-possession, and without any
fear of fortune, you walk securely under the guidance of those
tutors from the classical era. I, however, am far removed from
your studies and far separated from your peacefulness. I pass
night and day in garrulous debate, I build snares and fold curves
by means of which I am able to trap a cunning sophist. More-
over, I investigate the wonderful effects of nature. Through it all
I find myself jealous of your lifestyle and desirous of your mature
leisure. Perhaps that derives from the human suspicion that "the
grass is always greener on the other side." It may also be the case
that your lifestyle is objectively better than mine. You examine
what is morally upright while I examine what is true and what
through contemplation of itself perfects the divine force placed
within us.^
^ Epist., 125: "Ipse [Caetani] vero recognovit me protinus, non quidem nominatim, ut
qui nulla ei familiaritate iunctus essem, sed quern aliquando ad se venientem audisset,
crebroque Bononiae, dum in studiis ageremus, vidisset. Beneficii, quod in me tunc contulit,
memoriam ei feci, nam universam examinis conventusque mei impensam, quae ad se specta-
bat, mihi remisit." The university annually allowed a small group of students to petition for
a degree gratis or at university expense. By the time of this letter (1395), Caetani had be-
come patriarch of Aquileia; for his career, see Dieter Girgensohn, "Caetani, Antonio," DBI
16:115-19. Vergerio later passed public examinations at Padua on 5-7 March 1405. See also
Epist., 4, for Vergerio's presence in Padua "studiorum gratia"; ibid., 26, for Santo's greeting
"artium doctori nunc actu logicam legenti Bononiae"; and ibid., xv, 107, 484n. In general,
see Paul Oskar Kristeller, "Philosophy and Medicine in Medieval and Renaissance Italy," in
Stuart F. Spicker, ed.. Organism, Medicine and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of Hans Jonas,
Philosophy and Medicine 7 (Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston: D. Reidel, 1978), 33-36; and
Pearl Kibre, "Arts and Medicine in the Universities of the Later Middle Ages," in Jozef
Ijsewijn and Jacques Paquet, eds.. The Universities in the Late Middle Ages, Mediaevalia Lova-
niensia 1.6 (Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press, 1978), 216-27.
^ Epist, 13: "His comitantibus, vitam tuam tranquillus agis, te tibi possides et absque ul-
lo fortunae terrore, his tutoribus, secure incedis. Ego vero longe a studiis tuis absens, longe
otio tuo dispar, noctem diemque garrula disceptatione consumo, texo laqueos, complico
sinus, quibus argutum possim interceptare sophistam. Miros insuper naturae effectus studio-
sus inquiro, tuae (nescio an quia nemini sors sua placeat an quia praeclarior tua sit) vitae
semper invidus et maturi otii tui cupidus. Tu ergo quid honestum, ego quid verum rebus
insit perscrutor, quid divinam vim nobis insitam sui contemplatione perficiat, ex hoc forte
Adolescence 19
As the letter to Santo indicated, Vergerio combined his teaching with
continued study, focusing upon natural philosophy within the tradition-
al arts curriculum. Because physical health for him was a gift of nature,
he could accept occasional illness as unavoidable. However, Vergerio be-
came somewhat obsessed with the personal commitment required to
achieve a moral character."* He confessed to discouragement, unhappi-
ness, and agitation — typical symptoms of depression. Various causes con-
tributed to his spiritual malaise. He surely found his teaching assignment
less than satisfying. When offering lessons in dialectic, Vergerio found
himself immersed in a world of rancorous verbal contention. He dedi-
cated much of his intellectual energy to exposing the pretensions of
modern-day sophists and hardly won friends thereby. He remained dis-
satisfied in pursuing a truth so devoid of moral content: one need only
trap the opponent into revealing his logical error .^
Such involvement in unsatisfactory teaching activities, however, also
robbed Vergerio of the possibility of focusing his energies. He had to
divide his time between giving lessons and advancing his own studies
and found it difficult to concentrate on the latter. Modern pyschologists
have explored the fatigue which work habits, filled with constant inter-
ruptions, cause a human being. It is analogous to the rapid weariness
that humans experience in an art museum. As one concentrates closely
on one painting and then on another, the mere act of concentration be-
comes more difficult and more taxing. Vergerio experienced similar fa-
tigue and frustration. He did not teach what interested him, and he
found himself too tired after teaching to make steady progress in his
own studies. Thus, he felt increasingly disillusioned as he was unable to
fulfill his various commitments.^
studio plurimum perfectionis et gloriae adepturus." Gilles Gerard Meersseman, "Seneca mae-
stro di spiritualita nei suoi opuscoli apocrifi dal XII al XV secolo," IMU 16 (1973): 45, noted
Seneca's disdain for dialectical hair-splitting and metaphysical speculation.
* Epist, 41: "Sanum enim esse et robustum et velocem et cetera huiuscemodi naturae
sunt munera; virtuosum autem et bene moratum nostri muneris est."
* Epist, 12-13 (see n. 3 above) and 30: "Miraris et tu, meae conditionis non inscius, quo-
modo garulis sophismatibus circumsessus tantum oratoris gradum scandere et, quod plus di-
cis, retinere valuerim." In general, see Neal W. Gilbert, "The Early Italian Humanists and
Disputation," in Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi, eds.. Renaissance Studies in Honor
of Hans Baron (Florence: Sansoni, and De Kalb, 111.: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1971),
203-7.
^ Epist, 19-20 ("tot enim diversa, praeter studii mei curas, inopinate subserpunt, ut nee
studiis nee tibi nee mihi / impendam quod debeo, sed variis quibusdam cogitatibus et me
graviier torquentibus continue sum intentus") and ibid., 29-30.
20 CHAPTER 2
The external circumstances of Vergerio's life often deepened his sense
of frustration. In keeping with Stoic ideals, Vergerio tried to conceive of
his poverty as the nurturing companion of a true sage, but he could not
hide the fact that he found poverty nettlesome {molesta)/ Worse yet, he
found himself condemned to live in an age whose culture did not reach
the metaphorically banal quality of lead; he disparaged it as an age of
dirt or clay or sand. Fortune had tragically unleashed two of her most
powerful furies: war and plague. The city of Bologna was threatened in
those years by the advance of Giangaleazzo Visconti, who had already
led his Milanese forces to victory over the Delia Scala despot (signore) of
Verona and the Carrara despot of Padua. So bloody and ubiquitous did
the succession of campaigns prove that Vergerio calculated an exponen-
tial increase in the horrors that they engendered. However, one could
adopt defensive measures in military combat. Plague seemed even more
insidious to the young professor because neither physical strength nor
mental acumen offered any safe refuge. Only work distracted Vergerio
from his fear of contracting the plague; he described himself as so busy
that he, did not even have time to die.^
If the years at the University of Bologna gave Vergerio cause for
much agitation, they also allowed him to explore remedies for his un-
happiness. He gravitated at times toward the Stoic doctrine of impassivi-
ty, inspired by his reading of the Roman philosopher, Seneca. Vergerio
sensed that the tranquility of Santo de' Pellegrini's life was authentic be-
cause it derived from a leisurely communing with the written legacy of
Roman Stoicism. To carry on imaginary dialogue with an author such
^ Epist, 30 ("Paupertate igitur, ut tu me hortaris, minime moveor; earn enim iam mihi
quodammodo in nutricem assumpsi, et quamvis aliquando molestam habuerim, nunc earn
ut placidam hospitem teneo") and ibid., 125.
^ Epist., 34-36, esp. 35: "Quidnam arbitrandum sit tantarum cladium, tot cottidie malo-
rum nostro saeculo ingruentium causam fore, quot et quanta vix umquam alio saeculo acci-
disse credi possit. Instant gravissimae guerrae, et undique circumstant proximo metus earum,
fere sua radice peiores. Quae, etsi pestilentissimae sint et innumerabiles homines obruant,
urbes[que] plurimas evertant, plerumque tamen eis et vallorum robore et viribus et multitu-
dine pugilum obviatur. Huic autem atrocissimo malorum nullis viribus, nullo ingenio obsisti
potest quo minus quisque, quem sua sors tetigerit, irremediabili morbo depereat. Si igitur
haec a divina natura provenire dixeris, nostra scelera vindicante, tecum indubitate sentiam,
quae saeculum hoc, non plumbeum, sed terreum, fictile, immo arenosum, et ad quodlibet
nefas pronum, ulciscitur." For the diplomatic maneuvering and subsequent wars, see Ludo-
vico Frati, "La Lega dei Bolognesi e dei Fiorentini contro Gio. Galeazzo Visconti (1389-
90)," Archivio storico lombardo 16 (1889): 5-21; and Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early
Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and
Tyranny (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1955; rev. ed., Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press,
1966), 28-30.
^ Adolescence 21
as Seneca offered a welcome antithesis to the argumentative world of
dialectic' Moved by the image of Santo poring over Senecan treatises,
Vergerio rededicated himself to similar studies. They would give his life
useful direction and keep his mind focused. ^°
By repeatedly emphasizing his recourse to authors such as Seneca,
Vergerio seemed engaged in a therapeutic quest to convince himself and
others of his happiness. Yet his commitment to Stoic ideals proved half-
hearted at best. He felt that fleeing the plague presented a more reason-
able approach than continuing to reside in a city so infected that one ran
serious risk of contracting the disease. The Stoic sage did not fear death;
however, the Vergerian sage saw no reason to hasten its coming. More-
over, Vergerio never seemed convinced of the wisdom of facing life's
struggles alone. The young pedagogue battled loneliness by engaging in
a lifelong quest for solace within a community of scholars. To Seneca on
self-discipline Vergerio joined Cicero on friendship. There was surely an
element of calculation in Vergerio's effort to create a circle of supportive
friends. The scholars to whom he wrote usually had powerful and remu-
nerative positions in society. They were potential patrons. Still, Vergerio
also prized the encouragement he had received from the supportive
words of Santo de' Pellegrini. Santo's praise spurred his protege's resolve
to excel in his studies. ^^
Vergerio consistently sought solace in his program of studies. As he
did, he began to reorient his educational priorities by moving toward
the humanist end of learning's spectrum. Theoretically, he came to the
conviction that logic had value as a means {via) to more fundamental
educational goals. He defined the goals as facility in oratory and in a
philosophy that focused upon moral as well as scientific concerns. When
Vergerio sought to defend the value of his own university to a student
' Epist, 12-13: "Auguror te, vir egregie, cum Seneca iamdudum tuo, insomnes vigilias
agere et totum otii tui tempus secum non otiose conterere, iocundam equidem et praeclaram
et unicuique expetibiVlem conversationem in qua nullus rancor, nulla potest controversia
iurgiorum incidere, sed quietam semper atque pacificam, quae in honesto continue ac sancto
colloquio perseveret." In general, see Hans Baron, "Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth
in the Shaping of Trecento Humanistic Thought: The Role of Florence," In Search of Flor-
entine Civic Humanism: Essays on the Transition from Medieval to Modem Thought (Prince-
ton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1988), 1:195-97; and Letizia A. Panizza, "Textual Interpretation
in Italy, 1350-1450: Seneca's Letter I to LmcWius," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld In-
stitutes 46 (1983): 55.
'° Epist., 24, 41.
" Epist, 27-30, 40, esp. 29: "Sed ad bonum finem a te haec dicta non dubito; ingens
enim, ut dicunt, ad excitanda ingenia calcar est gloria."
22 CHAPTER 2
who had transferred to Siena, he emphasized that Bologna had a superi-
or program because the professors concerned themselves with ethics as
well as physics. ^^ Like many young scholars, Vergerio offered general
judgments that were shaped by his own deepening convictions. Those
convictions became the seeds of a revolutionary change in Western edu-
cation.
Galvanized by the idealism that Cicero and Seneca had embodied,
Vergerio sought to imitate their persuasive example. His letters especial-
ly indicated a deepening appreciation for the culture of Cicero. From an
initial preoccupation with questions of style, Vergerio eventually em-
braced the deeper implications of Cicero's rhetorical culture, describing
him as the "source of all eloquence"; Cicero had harnessed persuasive
oratory to the compelling example of an upright life.^^ Vergerio appre-
ciated that rhetoric in the Roman tradition valued ethos as an especially
effective mode of persuading. He likewise developed an awareness that
rhetorical culture did not exhaust human learning. Eloquence enhanced
one's expertise in a variety of important disciplines. Yet, on sound lin-
guistic grounds, Vergerio observed that eloquence had little utility for
the "mute" sciences.^'^ In the course of his career, he favored those dis-
ciplines germane to eloquence.
Before leaving Bologna, Vergerio succeeded in translating his theoret-
ical concerns into literary form. He wrote a comedy entitled Paulus in
imitation of the work of the Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence.
Vergerio developed a special affinity for Terence, who, after Cicero, was
the author that he most frequently cited in his letters.^^ For a scholar
'^ Epist., 30 ("Sed tamen non despero, quod, si huic studio intentum me dedero, satis
abunde proficiam. Logicae quidem disciplinae, quam aliis trado, ita insisto ut earn mihi viam
ad alias statuam et non finem, sed plerumque oratoriae, cuius eadem ratio est, plerumque
etiam et multo studiosius philosophiae, non solum ei quae naturam rerum ostendit, sed ei
quoque in qua omnis recta ratio vivendi consistit"); see also ibid., 36-37 and 39 (in describ-
ing the University of Bologna, Vergerio observes: "adsunt continue qui et virtuosos et scien-
tificos, quales ad eos spectat, actus excercent, legunt, disputant, et quaestiones, quae turn re-
rum varietatem, turn vitae honestatem tangunt, sedula collatione pertractant"). The Univer-
sity of Bologna had in fact begun to hire at minimal salaries lecturers on Aristotelian natural
and moral philosophy; see Nancy G. Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils: Two Genera-
tions of Italian Medical Learning (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1981), 21-23, 72-95, 114-
17.
'^ Epist., 13 ("Italae eloquentiae ac honestatis universae culmen"), 29 ("totius eloquentiae
fontem"), and 40.
'* Epist., 43.
'^ Leonardo Smith, Epist., Ixxxv n. 1. In 1412, Vergerio wrote to Ludovico Buzzacarini,
asking Buzzacarini to return a codex of Terence that Vergerio had lent him; for the circum-
stances, see Gianni Ballistreri, "Buzzacarini, Ludovico," DBI 15:645.
Adolescence 23
developing novel ideas about education, Terence was an apt model. The
literary structure of early Roman comedy mimicked the conventions of
the Greek genre. Plots involved young men who fell in love with
women forbidden to them because of their aristocratic standing. Often
the women were prostitutes. After the young man's father intervened to
put an end to the scandalous liaison, the lovers generally outwitted him
with the aid of clever slaves and were reunited by the play's end. Gener-
ally, the resolution reconciled all members of the family. The entire
drama unfolded within the confines of an aristocratic Roman household
in the extended sense. The young male aristocrat, the household slaves,
and the courtesan all were summoned to account for their intrigues be-
fore the absolute tribunal of the paterfamilias.
Comic situations in the earlier plays of Plautus underlined the au-
thoritarian relationship of a father to his son. Paternal severity should
be mirrored in filial reverence (pietas). Thus, the affective relationship be-
tween father and son grew more distant as the son reached adolescence.
Plautus poked fun at the formality of such a rapport by presenting farci-
cal father figures who demeaned themselves by competing with their
sons for the love of a prostitute. Unless seen as farce, such profligate be-
havior on the part of the father might erode the social foundations of
Roman political life. The aristocratic republic could ill afford to see its
leading citizens surrender to uncontrollable passions. In such circum-
stances, the very social fabric would be rent. Plautine comedies ultimate-
ly supported the traditional values of the aristocracy.
Terence had given this traditional structure a revolutionary twist.^^
Working from Greek models as Plautus had, Terence offered Roman so-
ciety a more modern approach to values. To the rigid severity of the tra-
dition, Terence counterposed a model of flexibility. Rome had evolved
from an agricultural to an urban society, and tolerance on the part of
the father figure reflected the changing values of the society.^'' The ten-
sion between the values of rural and urban life became fixtures of Ro-
'* See Luciano Perelli, // teatro rivoluzionario di Terenzio, Biblioteca di cultura 1 12 (Flor-
ence: La Nuova Italia, 1973); Elaine Fantham, " Hautontimorumenos znd Adelphoe: A Study
of Fatherhood in Terence and Menznder," Latomus 30 (1971): 970-90; Maurizio Bettini,/1«-
tropologia e cultura romana: Parentela, tempo, immagim dell'anima (Rome: La Nuova Italia
Scientifica, 1986), 18-49; and Grendler, Schooling, 250-52. Pietro da Moglio conducted signif-
icant investigations on the text of Terence at Bologna prior to 1381; see Giuseppe Billano-
vich, "L'insegnamento della grammatica e della retorica nelle universita iuliane tra Petrarca
e Guarino," in The Universities in the Late Middle Ages, 365-80.
'^ See the incisive comments of Bettini, Antropologia e cultura romana, ll-ld, 41-43.
24 CHAPTER 2
man cultural imagery. One hundred years later, when Cicero argued be-
fore Roman juries, he exploited paradigms from both contexts. In
speeches like the Pro Roscio Amerino, Cicero highlighted the noble par-
simony of agricultural society to cast avaricious urban opponents in the
worst light. However, in the Pro Caelio, Cicero adopted perspectives
more akin to those of Terence. In that instance, the conservative Roman
maintained that young men needed to be handled with tolerance, espe-
cially as they discovered their sexual powers in the years immediately
following puberty. ^^
When Pierpaolo Vergerio turned his interests toward humanist learn-
ing, he wrote the first comedy of the Italian Renaissance modeled upon
the Roman tradition, with particular appreciation for Terence. In effect,
Vergerio succeeded more thoroughly in grasping the cultural challenge
raised by Terence than he did in grasping Terence's poetic meter.^'
Vergerio found in Terence a sympathetic voice for his own developing
convictions and discovered that their ideals overlapped on key issues.
Like Terence, Vergerio made an adolescent male struggling with his sex-
uality the protagonist of his drama. Terence had likened the adolescent's
erotic energy to wine. Vergerio's Paulus, at his worst, allows libidinous
desire to overcome more prudent reflection. He squanders his wealth in
spending binges, often to pay for courtesans. As conceptualized within
the broad stream of Western humanism, therefore, the idea of freedom
(libertas) had a dialectical quality. Negatively, humanists used the word
to refer to absolute license in a hedonistic sense. Authentic human free-
dom, on the other hand, denoted the responsible exercise of choice
guided by mature self-control. ^° Both Terence and Vergerio raised the
crucial question of how to educate an adolescent in the proper exercise
of that power of choice.
Roman comedy typically portrayed the aristocratic adolescent as
naive and self-indulgent. Insulated by his social standing and susceptible
to cajoling, he could easily be entrapped by those more clever and
'* There are excellent analyses of Cicero's speeches in Ann C. Vasaly, "The Masks of
Rhetoric: Cicero's Pro Roscio Amerino," Rhetorica 3 (1985): 1-20; and Vasaly, Representa-
tions: Images of the World in Ciceronian Rhetoric (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: Univ.
of California Press, 1993), 156-90.
" See Karl Milliner, "Vergerios Paulus, eine Studentenkomodie," Wiener Studien 22
(1900): 234-35; Remigio Sabbadini, "II Paulus di P. P. Vergerio," Giomale storico della lette-
ratura italiana 38 (1901): 464-65; and Sergio Cella, "La figura e I'opera di Pier Paolo Ver-
gerio il Vecchio," Pagine istriane 3-4 (1986): 56-57.
2° Terence, And. 466-67; Eun. 430; Hec. 138-39; and Ad. 149-53, 470-71.
Adolescence 25
worldly-wise.^^ Such adolescents obviously had need of education and,
in Roman culture, the father played a central role in that education. In
starkest terms, the Roman father was taught to handle his son as though
he were breaking a wild horse. He must rein in youthful passion by ex-
ercising his disciplinary role with unbending severity. However, Terence
challenged such conduct by fathers as outmoded and self-defeating. To
meet his father's rigid standards, a son need only conceal his behavior,
not change it. Terence suggested that fathers were guilty of short mem-
ories in applying such severe standards to their sons. They forgot their
own youthful desires and measured youthful conduct against the sub-
dued passion of old age.
In contrast, Terence offered the character of a more sophisticated
father who tolerantly allowed his son to learn the responsible exercise
of free choice. The father should not approve every desire and concomi-
tant action on the part of the son; in that case, he would be like the pa-
thetic figure of the plays of Plautus. Rather, the father should enlighten
his son on the need to choose responsibly: a competent father corrected
his son when he acted immorally and encouraged him when he acted
properly. The father must consider the son's stage in human develop-
ment as well the content of his action. Sons could acquire a sense of the
proper use of free choice by studying disciplines (letters, music, physical
exercise) which inculcated a sense of propriety appropriate to the aristo-
crat's leading place in political society .^^ To the traditional virtues of
the rural past, Terence added an urbane refinement of thought and
behavior.
In the Paulus, Vergerio applied such insights on the moral education
of an adolescent to the different social conditions of late fourteenth-cen-
tury Italy. From its origins, the university system of learning had
created novel circumstances which forced adolescent students to leave
home. In Vergerio's comedy, therefore, the father figure is never on
stage; his appearance is used once as a veiled threat which will compel
Paulus to reform his profligate ways. Throughout his four years at the
University of Bologna, Paulus has been given sufficient monies by his
father so that he might comfortably ignore his studies in favor of much
carousing. One of his household slaves, Herotes, abets his master's he-
donistic ways while stealing from him. The plot of the play revolves
^' Ter., And. 910-12; and Phor. 270-77.
^ Tcr., And. 55-60; Heaut. 213-22; Eun. 476-78; znd Ad 51-58, 101-10, 989-95.
26 CHAPTER 2 _______^_^_
around a dream, which Paulus describes in the opening scene. In that
dream, he had seen whole new avenues for his talents: he might one day
earn the crown of poet laureate, marry a beautiful young woman, and
use his political acumen to become despot of his city-state. Upon awak-
ening, Paulus resolves to change his life for the better. He proposes to
excel in the studies that he had assiduously ignored till that moment be-
cause they offer the best means to the noble goals, which had finally
emerged from his subconscious. For Paulus, interior motivation, charac-
teristically tinged with vanity, plays a more important role than the ex-
ternal strictures of his father.^^ However, the rest of the play reveals
the successful efforts of Herotes to deflect his young master from his
proposed transformation.
In a speech to Paulus filled with sophistic arguments, Herotes imme-
diately begins to put his plan in motion. That such fallacious reasoning
would convince Paulus proves how remiss he had been till then in his
studies. Herotes weakens Paulus's resolve by first mentioning the revel-
ry of the Christmas season already upon them. Twisting the principle of
everything in just measure, the slave then assures his master that his
studies would never make him richer, given the size of his vast inheri-
tance. Finally, he flatters the young man by arguing for the sufficiency
of his native ability. Schooling rarely made persons as talented as himself
any better. The speech has every hope of success, given the vain charac-
ter of Paulus. Moreover, it is a clever piece of irony on Vergerio's part.
In effect, Herotes inverts the cardinal principles of Vergerio's nascent
humanist philosophy of education. Humanist studies were intended to
help form the character of the student, not to make him wealthier. Hu-
manist schooling should always make persons of talent even better.
To eradicate any residual resolve on the part of Paulus, Herotes then
promises to find him a virgin who would forego any fee for the honor
of sleeping with his "destitute master." Paulus is immediately attracted
to the scheme because he is so low on funds. Through a subtle form of
extortion, Herotes forces a courtesan to impersonate the virgin of his
master's fantasy. However, he first rewards himself for finding the wom-
^ PPV, Paulus, Perosa, ed., 322, lines 27-39: "Deus immortalis ac superi omnes! Quas
mihi delicias tulit hie somnus, quos honores, quas inextimabiles ac veras voluptates! Videbar
ipse mihi coronatus iam emerita lauro in patriam ivisse me, ac protinus sponsam virginem
generosam mihi, quae decore superaret solem. Quis autem conventus ad me optimatium,
quis omnium concursus! Ego ipse videbar consilia cunctis dare, iudicia regere, interpretari
leges veteres, leges constitui auctoritate mea novas. Quid multa? Si quid exorbuissem
amplius, rex eram!"
Adolescence 27
an; he "tastes the master's enticing repast" in order to insure that it is
not poisoned. Herotes later passes a harrowing moment at his master's
bedroom door when it seems that the courtesan had forgotten her role.
However, she remembers the script at the crucial moment and recites
her part convincingly.
The world of Vergerio's Paulus is one of swindling and counter swin-
dling: the slave swindles his master and the courtesan, the courtesan
swindles the master. The play's prologue suggests that the author under-
took its composition in order to reform morals. One lesson consistent
with the Roman tradition lies in the impressionable character of the
adolescent. Even the most noble resolve can be corrupted by an unscru-
pulous counselor.^^ A knave such as Herotes in this instance has an
easier task than he might have had under other circumstances. As the
procuress of the courtesan observes, adolescent males tend to permit
themselves virtually anything.^^ The libidinous tendencies of Paulus
know no restraint from a severe father, as in Roman days. He had left
home at a young age to pursue his studies in one of Europe's most dis-
tinguished universities.
In some ways, then, the play is an indictment of the university as the
key institution of the educational establishment. The studies prof erred
by the institution offer no disciplinary alternative in the absence of the
paterfamilias. Herotes epitomizes intelligence without moral restraint or
sensitivity. He candidly expresses his disdain for letters because they are
not easily conjoined with the sort of practical wisdom that has brought
him success. Herotes characterizes himself as so learned that he can
never utter the truth. The more he swears by the gods, the less he
should be trusted. His primary art is pleasing his master.^^ The divorce
^^ Paulus, 333, lines 305-9: "Sed verum est quod dicunt, eos, qui bono ingenio praediti
sunt, ut valent cum sese rectis applicant, eosdem malo suasore corruptos deterrimos fieri.
Sed omnia semper in peius abeunt."
" Paulus, 347, lines 645-49: "Quid, si nunc coegerit comites et conventum faciat, ut so-
lent? Spectare oportet omnia: adolescentes omnes sunt, quibus omnia licent, multaque trans-
mittunt impunita; tum et supprimere res nesciunt."
^* Paulus, 325, lines 115-16: "Ego, si detur optio mihi, nolim plenus esse litterarum: ita
raro summae litterae cum summa prudentia coeunt"; and ibid., 354, lines 817-25: "alium,
qui nihil penitus audire vellet veri, cui cum facerem satis, quamquam id reor mihi natura
datum, tam doctus evasi, ut nihil possim verum dicere. Si verum a me quicquam voles, con-
tra semper ac dixeram habeto, quoque magis deos adiuro, eo minus iubeo credas: nobis
enim, qui aliena vivimus mercede, omnes comparandae sunt artes, quo magis dominis pla-
ceamus." Herotes brags of his success in swindling former masters out of lai^e sums of
money: he thus forces some to become mercenaries, others expatriates, and still others
monks.
28 CHAPTER 2
of learning and moral living had dire consequences. Terence had found
himself embroiled in controversy with the theatrical establishment of his
day. Vergerio launched a pointed critique of the universities for an ex-
cessive emphasis on dialectic and natural philosophy and for inadequate
attention to moral training. Vergerio challenged educators who dealt
with impressionable young minds to show greater flexibility and greater
attention to formation of character.
Previous critics of the play have seen a biographical basis in Verge-
rio's characterization of Paulus. With the character's name, one can
defend the interpretation. And, in at least one letter from this period,
Vergerio admitted that he had a difficult time concentrating on his stud-
ies.^^ However, there are stronger reasons that militate against such an
interpretation. In Paulus, laziness and profligacy are the by-products of
wealth. On those rare occasions when Paulus actually attended lectures,
he could never find his place in the books, which he continually pawned
to finance his carousing. Vergerio claimed poverty as his constant com-
panion during those years. Moreover, Vergerio consistently embraced
learning as a form of discipline; to labor at studies, even without
significant progress, was better than to waste one's life in pursuit of
pleasure. Vergerio resented the leisure permitted to wealthier students at
the university. The play offered words of praise for students who de-
voted themselves to study and made such progress in a single year that
they could dispute effectively against all opponents.^^
The medium of the Paulus is a message. By imitating Terence, Verge-
rio could emphasize the importance of learning that helped moral devel-
opment. That was particularly important in the case of an adolescent,
who confronted the urges of his libido without the guidance, be it severe
or tolerant, of his father. The motivation of the youth himself, the care-
ful guidance of his friends and advisors, and the directions of his educa-
tional institution had to compensate for the missing guidance of a pater-
familias. In a key confrontation, replete with irony, the freed slave
Stichus upbraids his master Paulus, who had allowed himself to become
^ Sabbadini, "II Paulus,'' 464; and Epist., 29: "Dum enim considero quot dies otiosus et
inutilis egi, quot noctes marcido sopore consumpsi, non modo haec de me fingere non
audeo, sed omnino alicuius umquam pretii futurum me esse despero."
28 ppv, Paulus, 323, lines 58-61: "Dinus, isque admodum tener, quam elegans biennio
hoc evasit; alter ille annum solum audivit litteras iamque cum omnibus sedulo disputat." See
also the praise of the adolescent Titus, ibid., 335, who studied diligently, regularly attended
church, ate meagerly due to his poverty, and consistently tried to convince Paulus to amend
his ways.
Adolescence 29
enslaved to his passions.^' The play confirms what Vergerio's letters
had also indicated: during his years as a professor and student at Bolo-
gna, Vergerio increasingly embraced the moral concerns of the humanist
program of education.
In those years at the University of Bologna, Vergerio found rare mo-
ments of tranquility when he perused the writings of Cicero and Seneca,
welcoming them as a source of inspiration and as a sedative for his
spirit. Vergerio harbored vivid memories of violence and social distur-
bance from his youngest days in exile. When he entered the university,
he found to his dismay a world characterized by violent verbal debate.
He first taught within the Scholastic system, training pupils in dialectic.
Experiences on both sides of the teacher's podium upset his inner calm.
In contrast, Vergerio found refuge in the Stoicism of Roman rhetori-
cians. Vergerio's commitment to humanism represented a reaction to his
childhood experience of political violence and his educational experience
of intellectual conflict. He felt tranquil in the company of orators, who
combined eloquence {eloquentia) with integrity (honestas). His education-
al priorities shifted accordingly: logic should no longer comprise the
basis for further education. It should be subordinated to rhetoric, moral
philosophy, and natural science. Those convictions proved to be revolu-
tionary.
" Paulus, 332-33, lines 279-96, esp. lines 279-85: "[Paulus] Ergo eum patiar, qui vilis-
simus siet servus, nunc indignus libertate, ita in me agat? [Stichus] At non ita de me pater
iudicavit tuus, quando libertatem dedit. Videbimus quid de te libero iudicet, de quo quidem
nihil dici potest nisi scelera omnia."
CHAPTER 3
Classicizing Oratory
During his stay in Bologna, Pierpaolo Vergerio wrote a letter to
Francesco Novello da Carrara, the once and future despot of the
city of Padua. Driven from Padua by the troops of Giangaleazzo Viscon-
ti in 1388, Francesco Novello had approached various Visconti enemies
for support in a campaign to win back his lordship {signoria). Those
travels had taken him to Florence in April of 1389 and to Bologna a few
months later. There, Pierpaolo Vergerio saw the deposed ruler and used
that visual contact as an excuse to write to him. In a polished piece of
political flattery, Vergerio contrasted the general character of princes of
his age to the peculiar qualities of Francesco. Most princes adopted a
lifestyle that compromised their high standing and the welfare of their
subjects. They lived as slaves to the pursuit of pleasure and financial
gain. Francesco Novello, on the contrary, had assured his good reputa-
tion and the well-being of his subjects by supporting the study of the
liberal arts. Despite disclaimers to the contrary, Vergerio intended that
his letter pave the way for his move to Padua late in 1390, where he
hoped to attain Carrara patronage. Except for a brief stay in Florence
and summers in Capodistria, Vergerio settled in Padua until 1397.^
Vergerio reached the city shortly after Francesco Novello had won
back his position of dominance. On 21 June 1390, the citadel of the city,
garrisoned by troops loyal to Giangaleazzo Visconti, fell to the Carrara
army. It took Francesco Novello another month to crush residual resis-
' Epist, 31-32. Nicoletto d'Alessio, originally from Capodistria, was chancellor for the
Carrara at that time and held the office until his death in 1393; see Paolo Sambin, "Alessio,
Nicoletto d'," DBI 2:247-48.
32 CHAPTER 3
tance; on September 8, Paduan officials reconf erred the lordship of the
city in a solemn public ceremony. Heartened by that initial success, the
anti-Visconti coalition, which then consisted principally of Francesco
Novello and his allies in Florence and Bologna, planned to weaken
Giangaleazzo further by reestablishing Delia Scala rule in Verona and by
attacking Francesco Gonzaga, Mantuan supporter of Visconti aggression.
The coalition's armies launched a first attack in the winter of 1390-1391,
and by the summertime they had marched deep into Milanese territory,
threatening Bergamo and Brescia.^
Vergerio followed these events closely and sent letters to his friend
Giovanni da Bologna analyzing the conflict. He used the letters to en-
rich his dossier as a political strategist. The first letter was written in
January 1391, before the outbreak of hostilities. Vergerio confessed that
he had difficulty in sorting out truth from false rumor. He judged the
situation to be explosive: Visconti politics had polarized the Italian
world. Openly or clandestinely, all the Italian states had chosen sides.
Vergerio depicted the struggle in the starkest of moral terms. Giangale-
azzo Visconti represented the cause of evil tyranny; the forces allied
against him upheld the cause of liberty.^ While Giangaleazzo sought to
delay the outbreak of hostilities, his opponents, because they had limited
financial resources, wished to provoke a full-scale battle. The campaign
unwound according to that pattern: the coalition as the aggressor and
Giangaleazzo as the cautious delayer, hoping to exhaust his opponents'
resources in a drawn-out struggle.
In subsequent letters, Vergerio followed the failure of the coalition's
winter campaign, the dramatic success of the coalition early in the sum-
mer, and the disappointing retreat of the coalition's troops to Padua at
summer's end. Behind the military events, Vergerio attempted to read
deeper political lessons. After the winter campaign had failed, he excori-
ated the leadership for immediately seeking scapegoats. Vergerio felt that
politicians resorted to conspiracy theories to obfuscate the collective fail-
ure of their own policies.^ Moreover, Vergerio found Giangaleazzo 's
^ M. Chiara Ganguzza Billanovich, "Carrara, Francesco da, il Novello," DBI 20:656-62.
^ Epist., 46-53, 58; and David Robey, "P. P. Vergerio the Elder: Republicanism and
Civic Values in the Work of an Early Italian Humanist," Past and Present, no. 58 (February
1973): 9-11.
* Epist, 68: "Quidam in eo congressu de suscepta fide, falso, ut ego existimo, infames ha-
biti sunt. Verum sic fieri in magnis rebus solet, ut, cum exitus non plene respondeat spei, et
temere quid aut per ignaviam actum sit, crimen errorque multitudinis transferatur in
paucos." Leonardo Smith, ibid., 68 n. 2, cites evidence from the Corpus Chronicorum Bono-
Classicizing Oratory 33
strategy of avoiding pitched battle rather puzzling. Judging the Visconti
ruler intent on subjugating all of Italy, Vergerio felt that he had no hope
of achieving his goal without defeating the coalition in full-scale battle.^
Much of Vergerio's final analysis turned upon his conviction that
both sides in the Italian struggle pursued myopic policies which ulti-
mately threatened their very existence. Incessant local rivalries ended up
pitting one alliance of Italian city-states against another. Such wars un-
derstandably attracted the attention of foreign powers, given the eco-
nomic wealth of the peninsula. If civil war itself did not portend suicide
for the states of Italy, then the tendency to drag useless foreign allies in-
to the conflict did. "This is our long-standing custom: Italians cannot
wage war between themselves without involving the rest of the world in
our insane labors."^ After the war, rumors had begun to circulate that
King Charles VI of France (1380-1422) and Emperor Wenceslaus of Ger-
many (1378-1410) planned to invade Italy. Vergerio may have wished to
highlight the stupidity of Italian bickering by suggesting that even those
two inept rulers presented a serious threat.
Vergerio's letter to Francesco Novell© and his war correspondence
failed to win the patronage of the Carrara family. In letters through
1394 Vergerio still complained regularly of financial difficulties. To help
meet his expenses, he continued to teach logic while pursuing further de-
grees at the University of Padua. He also received some assistance from
Francesco Zabarella, who had come to teach canon law at the university
shortly after the restoration of Carrara rule. He depended especially
upon the financial help of his hometown friend, Santo de' Pellegrini.
Without that support, Vergerio candidly admitted that his life would
have been very different. Compelled to live in Capodistria on the
niensium that Astorre Manfredi da Faenza {signore from 1377-1404, d. 1405) had plotted to
kill John Hawkwood and Francesco Novello.
^ Epist, 71-78, where Vergerio's analysis seems dictated, in part, by the need to demon-
strate that the League had won the campaign.
^ Epist., 79: "Quid enim opus erat ad haec intestina et, ut ita dicam, civilia Bella exteras
gentes advocare? Abunde furoris et virium est ut in semet ruat Italia. Sed vetus hie mos est.
Nequit in se bellum agere nisi et reliquum orbem insanis laboribus suis admisceat." To ex-
emplify his argument fibid., 80), Vergerio pointed to the support that Count Jean HI
d'Armagnac promised to the League's forces, so that they might trap Giangaleazzo's army
in a fatal vise. Instead, the count delayed his arrival far beyond the planned date, and his
army retreated quickly into France after its defeat at Alessandria on 25 July 1391 and his
death the following day. Because Giangaleazzo did not have to fight a war on two fronts,
he could outlast the League and force the retreat of its army. Cf. Vergerio's evaluation of
John Hawkwood, ibid., 68-69; and Quentin Skinner, The Renaissance, vol. 1 of The Founda-
tions of Modem Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 74-77.
34 CHAPTER 3
meager resources that remained to his family after the War of Chioggia,
Vergerio would have dissipated his energies with no access to liberal
studies/
Vergerio thus gambled that he might improve his attractiveness to a
princely patron by lengthening his curriculum of studies and assuring
the recommendations of prestigious intellectuals. Official documents
from Padua indicate that, by 13 October 1394, Vergerio had achieved
the degree of doctor of the arts and medicine and had proceeded to the
study of civil law/ He may also have studied rhetoric with Giovanni
Conversini da Ravenna because he had the opportunity to attend Gio-
vanni's university lectures or to arrange for private tutoring. From 1380
to 1383, Conversini had served Francesco da Carrara il Vecchio as one
of the regime's secretaries. He returned to Padua in the spring of 1393
to accept a public lectureship in grammar and rhetoric at the university.
At the end of that year, after the death of Nicoletto d'Alessio, Giovanni
assumed the office of chancellor.^ While Vergerio continued to nurture
^ The evidence that Vergerio continued to lecture on logic at the University of Padua
is discussed by Smith, Epist., 484n. For the support of Santo de' Pellegrini, see ibid., 148-50.
Vergerio lived with Francesco Zabarella for a time, probably when he first moved to Padua,
and Zabarella helped him obtain books and take examinations. See ibid., 130, and Vergerio's
remark in his tribute to Zabarella in 1417 (ibid., 365): "quamobrem interdum quidem ei do-
mesticus fui, semper autem familiaris." See further Gasparo Zonta, Francesco Zabarella
(1360-1417) (Padua, 1915), 18-20; and Nicholas Mann, "Arnold Geilhoven: An Early
Disciple of Petrarch in the Low Countries," /o«'^'*^ of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
32 (1969): 7A-7(}. Leonardo Smith offers evidence that Vergerio lived "in contrata Ruthe-
nae" on 18 October 1394. At that time, Zabarella had his residence "in contrata Sanctae
Malgaritae," where he had moved in 1391. See Smith, Epist., 107 n. 1; and Claudio Bellinati,
"La casa canonicale di Francesco Petrarca a Padova: Ubicazione e vicende," in Contributi
alia storia della chiesa padovana nell'eta medioevale 1, Fonti e ricerche 1 1 (Padua: Istituto per
la Storia Ecclesiastica Padovana, 1979), 111-12.
* Leonardo Smith, "Note" cronologiche vergeriane, III-V," Archivio veneto, ser. 5, 4
(1928): 92-96; and Smith, Epist., xvi.
' See Remigio Sabbadini, Giovanni da Ravenna insigne figura d'umanista (1343-1408),
Studi umanistici 1 (Como, 1924), 74-78, 99-104; Alfredo Galletti, L'eloquenza (dalle origini
al XVI secolo), Storia del generi letterari italiani (Milan, 1904-38), 553-57; Luciano Gargan,
"Giovanni Conversini e la cultura letteraria a Treviso nella seconda meta del Trecento,"
IMU S (1965): 132-34; R. G. G. Mercer, TTje Teaching of Gasparino Barzizza, with Special Ref-
erence to His Place in Paduan Humanism, Texts and Dissertations Series 10 (London: Modem
Humanities Research Association, 1979), 16-17; Benjamin G. Kohl, "Introduction," in
Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna, Dragmalogia de eligibili vitae genere, H. Lanneau Eaker,
ed. and trans., Bucknell Renaissance texts in translation, in conjunction with The Renais-
sance Society of America: Renaissance Texts Series 7 (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell Univ.
Press, and London: Associated University Presses, 1980), 13-30; and John M. McManamon,
"Innovation in Early Humanist Rhetoric: The Oratory of Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder,"
Rinascimento, n.s., 22 (1982): 4-5. Though Leonardo Smith has proposed that Vergerio
studied under Giovanni in private, he could also have attended the university lectures. Stu-
dents at Padua had studied the arts and medicine simultaneously for over fifty years. See
classicizing, Oratory 35
contacts with a group of doctors and scientists, he now emphasized his
humanist studies {studia litterarum, studia eloquentiae aut scribendi, exer-
citium litterarum) when he described his hfe in Padua.^° They were to
be the bridge to political service.
Vergerio depicted himself as a dedicated student in those Paduan
years. He claimed that he often attended two or three lectures on a
single day. Rising before dawn, he studied by candlelight when neces-
sary. He claimed that he rarely left his house except to attend lectures at
the university. When he needed to take a break, he preferred a short
walk within the confines of his own garden. Vergerio allowed only his
friendship with Francesco Zabarella to break that rigorous schedule.
When Vergerio knew that Zabarella had the following day free from lec-
turing, he would stop by Zabarella's house in the evening to play board
games or amuse himself in writing exercises. Even when the two friends
retreated to the Euganean hills to hunt and fish, they brought along
copies of Terence, Virgil, and Cicero. Discussions of Cicero kept them
up well into the night. ^^
During the years in Padua, Vergerio's friendships acquired a tint of
political calculation. Through his personal letters, Vergerio contacted
prominent figures from the various city-states that comprised the
Smith, EpisL, 109 n. 2; Nancy G. Siraisi, Arts and Sciences at Padua: The Studium of Padua
before 1350, Studies and Texts 25 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973),
55-58; and Lucia Rossetti, "Lo Studio di Padova nel Quattrocento: Nota informativa," in
Antonino Poppi, ed., Scienza efilosofia all'Universita di Padova nel Quattrocento, Contributi
alia storia dell'Universita di Padova 15 (Padua: Centro per la storia dell'Universita, and
Trieste: LINT, 1983), 11-12. Ronald G. Witt, in "Still the Matter of the Two Giovannis:
A Note on Malpaghini and Conversino," forthcoming in Rinascimento, n.s., 35 (1995), ar-
g;ues that Vergerio did not study formally with Giovanni Conversini. I follow here the re-
vised chronology for Conversini's Paduan sojourns as defined by Luciano Gargan, "Per la
biblioteca di Giovanni Conversini," in R. Avesani, M. Ferrari, T. Foffano, G. Frasso, and
A. Sottili, eds.. Vestigia: Studi in onore di Giuseppe Billanovich, Raccolta di studi e testi 162-
63 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1984), 1:378-80.
'° See Epist., 98, 99, and 107.
" Epist., 107, 153-54. Recently, scholars have identified codices of the Tragedies of Sen-
eca with autograph notes by Zabarella (Venice, Bibl. Nazionale Marciana, cod. Marc. lat.
Xn.26 [3906]) and Vergerio (Oxford, Bodleian, cod. Auct. F.I. 14 and a copy in Trent,
Museo and Bibl. Nazionale, cod. W.43), all of which date from the late fourteenth century.
See Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter 2:240b-41a, 6:232a-b; and Klara Csapodi-Gardonyi, Die Bibli-
othek des Johannes Vitez, Studia Humanitatis: Veroffentlichungen der Arbeitsgruppe fiir
Renaissanceforschung 6 (Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1984), 23-24, 134-35 (#96). Ezio Fran-
ceschini, in his "Glosse e commenti medievali a Seneca tragico," Studi e note di/ilologia la-
tina medievale, Pubblicazioni della Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (S. Quarta): Scienze
filologiche 30 (Milan, 1938), 103-4, described Vergerio's notes as "redatte in un latino assai
interessante."
36 CHAPTER 3
anti-Visconti front. His correspondents included Pellegrino Zambeccari,
chancellor of the Bolognese regime, Zaccaria Trevisan, a powerful young
member of the Venetian oligarchy, Michele da Rabatta, virtual prime min-
ister of the Carrara despotism in Padua and administrative vicar for the
patriarchate of Aquileia from 1394 to 1395, and Coluccio Salutati, humanist
chancellor of the Florentine Republic.^^ Of them all, Vergerio saw Salutati
as the most important, and he cultivated that relationship most actively. In
fact, Vergerio used a strategy first employed by Salutati himself.
To become prominent in the humanist movement, Salutati had cor-
responded with Petrarch, the movement's recognized leader, in the years
immediately before Petrarch's death in 1374. Exploiting the genre of the
personal letter that Petrarch himself had rediscovered, Salutati expressed
intense admiration for the aged scholar. Yet Salutati did not conceal his
insecurity about their late-blooming relationship. In fact, Petrarch wrote
only one letter in response to those he had received from the rather ob-
scure notary. However, Salutati had brought Petrarch within his collect-
ed letters, and he furthered the impression of intimate friendship by
writing two letters to commemorate Petrarch after his death. With ful-
some praise, Salutati characterized Petrarch as superior to Virgil in his
poetry and to Cicero in his prose. ^^
Vergerio likewise attached himself early in his career to Salutati. His
letters to the Florentine chancellor in 1391 sought Salutati's imprimatur
for his humanist orthodoxy. Having made great progress through con-
tact with Salutati in Florence, Vergerio now claimed that he had lost
momentum because he could no longer participate directly in the discus-
sions that Salutati sponsored at the convent of the Augustinian friars.
Their letters supplied the best bond in lieu of direct contact. Vergerio
looked to Salutati for guidance in the way of moral living, an area of
education that had fallen within the competence of ancient "orators and
philosophers."^^ That remark indicates an important development in
Vergerio's own approach to humanism during his years of study in
Padua.
'^ Epist, 53-66, 97-101. For Vergerio's relationship to Salutati, see also Marcello
Aurigemma, StuJi sulla cultura letteraria fro, Tre e Quattrocento (Filippo Villani, Vergerio,
Bruni) (Rome: Bulzoni, 1976), 61-66.
" Benjamin G. Kohl, "Mourners of Petrarch," in Aldo Scaglione, ed., Francis Petrarch,
Six Centuries Later: A Symposium, North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and
Literatures: Symposia 3 (Chapel Hill, N.C., and Chicago, 1975), 345, 347-48. Giovanni Boc-
caccio had once described Petrarch as the equal of Virgil in poetry and Cicero in prose.
" Epist., 65-66.
Classicizing Oratory 37
The art of public speaking increasingly became Vergerio's preferred
medium of expression. Whether through studies with Giovanni Conver-
sini or through his own scrutiny of Cicero, Vergerio's reliance on his
abilities as an orator multiplied. His rhetorical works help us to recon-
struct the convictions he reached during those crucial Paduan years.
What Vergerio praised in the orations of others represented the tech-
niques of effective oratory that he had determined to be imperative. In
many ways, Vergerio simply recapitulated the standard system of rhet-
oric offered in "Ciceronian" handbooks like the De inventione and the
Rhetorica ad HerenniumP The most promising students of oratory
came equipped for their task with such attributes as intelligence and a
voice that projected well outdoors. Successful speakers focused on con-
tent {inventio) as well as style {omatio). Vergerio appreciated the persua-
sional power of rational argumentation {logos), ethical conviction {ethos),
and emotional appeals (pathos), and he sought to harness those modes of
persuasion to stylistic virtues of clarity and decorum. Stylistic figures
should be accommodated to the subject matter, lest the style detract
from the seriousness (gravitas) of the issues at hand.
In addition, Vergerio gained a sense of the ways in which those clas-
sical principles had to be adapted to the modern political setting. Here
Giovanni Conversini almost certainly shared with Vergerio the fruits of
his knowledge as a political insider. For example, if Vergerio succeeded
in his goal of obtaining the patronage of an Italian prince, he would find
himself immersed in the world of oligarchic politics. Vergerio himself
stated his disdain for contemporary orators, who sometimes delivered
speeches in the vernacular so that the entire audience might understand
the contents. He preferred a Latin oration as more attuned to the clas-
sical tradition and the peculiar skills of humanists. By restricting the
audience, moreover, the humanist would foster oratory more appropri-
ate to the oligarchic politics of his day.^^ In order to sensitize himself
to the challenges of working for such a regime, Vergerio seems to have
exploited the classical exercise of declamation. That exercise — in which
'^ I am here applying an approach first used by Michael Baxandall with regard to
painting; see his Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social
History of Pictorial Style (2d ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), 109-53.
For the influence of the rhetorical treatises of Cicero, see John O. Ward, "From Antiquity
to the Renaissance: Glosses and Commentaries on Cicero's Rhetorica" in James J. Murphy,
ed.. Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval Rhetoric (Berkeley, Los
Angeles, and London: Univ. of California Press, 1978), 25-67.
'' PPV, De dignissimo funebri apparatu, RIS 16:193A-B, 194A-B.
38 CHAPTER 3
a student imagined himself in a famous situation which required that he
dehver an oration — fostered a distinct sense of historical conscious-
ness.^'^ It may well be that the circle of humanists in Padua also com-
posed orations for important events connected to the activity of the Car-
rara regime.
Having whet Vergerio's appetite for a role at court, Giovanni Con-
versini likewise shared with him the potential dangers one might en-
counter there. New courtiers often aroused the envy of those whom
they had outclassed. Throughout his years as a servant to the Carrara,
Conversini found it difficult to hide his contempt for many of his asso-
ciates. He occupied a delicate position because Francesco Novello
showed him special favor. More than once, Giovanni portrayed France-
sco Novello as an ignorant prince surrounded by willing sycophants.
Conversini saw himself as the brains behind Carrara muscle. The prince
regularly invited Giovanni to share his meals in order that the chancel-
lor might answer his questions. He often had to explain to Francesco
the meaning of the texts read during the Mass. Giovanni candidly ad-
mitted that he assumed an obsequious posture toward his patrons. "If I
'^ Renata Fabbri, "Un esempio della tecnica compositiva del Polenton: La Vita Senecae
{Script. III. Lat. Ling. lib. XVII}," Res Publica Litterarum: Studies in the Classical Tradition 10
(1987): 85-86, has established that the "Vita Senecae" and the "Oratio Senecae," which
previous scholars attributed to Vergerio (e.g.. Smith, Epist., xvi n. 2), actually formed part
of Sicco Polenton's biography of Seneca {Script. III. Lat. Ling., lib. XVII, B. L. Ullman, ed.
[Rome, 1928], 482-85, 493-94). Before completing the work on Latin authors, Polenton had
already extrapolated the chapter on Seneca and sent it to Enrico Scarampo, the bishop of
Feltre. Wolfgang Speyer, "Tacitus, Annalen 14, 53/56 und ein angeblicher Briefwechsel
zwischen Seneca und Nero," Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie 114 (1971): 351-59, published
the exchange between Seneca and Nero as letters forged by a humanist; two years later, he
corrected himself in "Sicco Polenton und ein angeblicher Briefwechsel zwischen Seneca und
Nero," Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie 116 (1973): 95-96. Polenton studied "the poets and
eloquence" under Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna at Padua {Script. III. Lat. Ling., lib. VI,
Ullman, ed., 166: "Pubescens vero poetisque ac eloquentiae studens, audiebam loannem Ra-
vennatem, Cursini grammatici filium"). Several declamations written during the Renaissance,
which were frequently collected in humanist miscellanies, became teaching texts for instruc-
tion in oratory. Among the most popular were Salutati's declamation of Lucretia and the
short speeches attributed to Athenians debating the policies to adopt before Alexander of
Macedon. See Enrico Menesto, Coluccio Salutati editi e inediti latini dal Ms. 53 della Biblio-
teca Comunaledi Todi, Res Tudertinae 12 (Todi: s.t., 1971); Berthold Louis Ullman, 7^e Hu-
manism of Coluccio Salutati, Medioevo e umanesimo4 (Padua: Antenore, 1963), 34; Ronald
G. Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works, and Thought of Coluccio Salutati, Duke
Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press,
1983), 83 n. 23; Stephanie H. Jed, Chaste Thinking: The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of Hu-
manism (Bloomington, Ind., and Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 1989), 18-50; and
Remigio Sabbadini, "Antonio da Romagno e Pietro Marcello," Nuovo archivio veneto 30
(1915): 221-24.
classicizing Oratory 39
have to serve, I do not want to be poor; if I have to be poor, I don't
want to serve." In exchange for special food, Giovanni performed a
number of demeaning tasks for Francesco Novello: he fanned him,
played games with him in the evening, tickled his feet to relax him
before sleeping, helped him undress for bed, and slept with his clothes
on in the event the prince required his services on short notice. When
other courtiers tired of Giovanni's favored treatment at court, they
schemed to have the portions and quality of his food reduced. By 1402,
Giovanni had resigned his post in disgust. ^^
Adolescent student of a disillusioned master, Vergerio seemed less
jaded about the potential of political life. He viewed it from the perspec-
tive of an outsider who wished to enter, and he became convinced that
oratory supplied the key to unlocking the door. His friends actually ac-
cused him of spending too much time on oratory, and his surviving
corpus indicates his preoccupation in that regard from the years 1392 to
1394.^' Vergerio composed three orations for delivery at events at the
court of Francesco Novello,^° and he also wrote the first panegyrics of
Saint Jerome, which he delivered in churches in the vicinity of Padua
and Capodistria. That corpus supplies evidence of a conscious priority
on Vergerio's part. His dedication to humanist studies led him to
recover the classical style of oratory and the spirit of classical culture,
which placed the orator at the center of public life.^^ Orators in an-
'* See Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna, Dragmalogia de eligibili vitae genere, H.
Lanneau Eaker, ed. and trans., Bucknell Renaissance texts in translation, in conjunction with
The Renaissance Society of America: Renaissance Texts Series 7 (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell
Univ. Press, and London: Associated University Presses, 1980), 73-81; Sabbadini, Giovanni
da Ravenna, 52-58, 78-89; and Kohl, "Introduction," 21, 24-27.
" Epist., 115-17; and Leonardo Smith, "Note cronologiche III-V," 96-113.
^ The three orations may be declamations composed by Vergerio in order to demon-
strate the advantages of following classical principles. No evidence exists to prove that they
were delivered publicly. In the case of the funeral oration for Francesco il Vecchio, neither
Vergerio himself (De dignissimo funebri apparatu, RIS 16:193A-94B) nor the Gatari chroni-
cles {RIS, n.s., 17.1:441-44) mention an oration by him, though both treat of other orations
on the same occasion. One manuscript (cod. Marc. lat. XI.56, fol. 72) labels the oration for
Cermisone a supplica. All three of the orations survive in a limited group of manuscripts:
they number twelve for the oration to celebrate Francesco Novello's return, eleven for the
funeral oration and five for the oration on behalf of Cermisone. Details will appear in the
finding-list of Vergerio manuscripts appended to the edition of the Jerome panegyrics
forthcoming from MRTS. See also Smith, Epist, 117n., 432n., 492-93 n. 3.
^' See, in general, Galletti, L'eloquenza, 411-553; Jerrold E. Seigel, Rhetoric and Philoso-
phy in Renaissance Humanism: The Union of Eloquence and Wisdom, Petrarch to Valla
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968), 200-248; and Ronald G. Witt, "MedievaUrj ^icra-
minis and the Beginnings of Humanism: A New Construction of the Problem," Renaissance
Quarterly 35 (1982): 3, 20-21.
40 CHAPTER 3
cient Rome did not pursue oratory as a profession in itself. They ac-
quired training in the art of pubHc speaking in order to participate in
poHtical life.
Paduan political society in the fourteenth century had turned to a
small-scale monarchy typical of many of the city-states of central and
northern Italy. Pressures had increased on the communal government
from both ends of the political spectrum. The great noble families
sought to increase their leverage against rival families through marriage
alliances. The growth of the urban poor occasionally led to public tur-
moil. When competition with neighboring city-states triggered wars, the
Paduan commune turned to the Carrara family as proven leaders of a
powerful faction within the governing oligarchy. The governing elite
commissioned the Carrara to repress centrifugal forces within the
city-state and to defeat the forces who attacked from without .^^
In the period of Carrara rule, the regime governed effectively when
it built consensus within the ruling elite and rallied public support to its
cause. Due to financial problems, however, it did not always operate ac-
cording to such magnanimous ideals.^^ The regime used consultative as-
semblies and ritual activities to foster its goals. The Carrara despot met
with members of the governing elite to determine public policy and
wartime strategy. That elite included professional administrators drawn
from the ranks of lawyers and notaries as well as intellectuals involved
in the activities of the university. The trend to expand membership in
government beyond the magnate class had begun in the communal era
and continued during Carrara rule.^'* Even so, the regime excluded the
majority of citizens from participation, particularly the lesser guildsmen.
However, to prevent unrest and foster active support, those citizens
were gathered together to approve decisions for war and peace and to
participate in public celebrations of the regime's success.^^
^ J. K. Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante (Manchester: Manchester University Press, and
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), 24-25, 82-83, 193-210, 220-310.
^ The Visconti governors of Padua gathered testimony on the heavy exactions made by
Francesco il Vecchio in the years immediately prior to his abdication in 1388; see Roberto
Cessi, "Il malgovemo di Francesco il Vecchio signore di Padova,'Mm del R. Istituto Veneto
di scienze, lettere ed arti 66, no. 2 (1906-7): 741-48; and Benjamin G. Kohl, "Carrara, Fran-
cesco da, il Vecchio," D5/ 20:654. By 1400, the Carrara allegedly owned one-quarter of the
territory of Padua; see Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance
Italy (New York: Knopf, 1979), 166-67. In general, see Kohl, "Government and Society in
Renaissance Padua," The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2 (1972): 205-14.
^^ Gatari, Cronaca carrarese, RIS, n.s., 17.1:185, 264-65, 311-15, 326-29, 528-29, 547-48,
570-71; and Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante, 121-75.
^^ Gatari, Cronaca carrarese, RIS, n.s., 17.1:165, 198, 207, 275-76 (for triumphal proces-
Classicizing Oratory 41
By the last quarter of the fourteenth century, the regime also used
ostensibly private occasions for public purposes. For example, the wed-
dings of members of the Carrara house became occasions for public fes-
tivities. It was appropriate to involve the citizenry in the celebration of
those weddings because they had a fundamentally political scope. Fran-
cesco il Vecchio and his son Francesco Novello arranged the marriage of
their children to the sons and daughters of powerful neighboring ruling
families: the Frangipani of Segna, the Este of Ferrara, the Gonzaga of
Mantua, and the Da Varano of Camerino. The marriages formed part of
a broader diplomatic strategy designed to strengthen the city-state's posi-
tion in the wars of the late Trecento. The ceremonies virtually erased
the lines between private and public: Padua's subordinate classes were
invited to participate. The festivities were intended to foster patriotic
spirit. Sharing such an occasion with the general populace underlined, in
turn, the magnanimity of the regime.^^ In a similar fashion, the regime
began to decree elaborate public funeral commemorations for Carrara
family members, for Paduan military leaders, for allied generals, and for
an intellectual like Petrarch whom the ruling family had patronized in
order to exploit his European prestige.^
Pierpaolo Vergerio consciously sensed the effectiveness of such a pol-
sions and similar victory celebrations), and ibid., 94-95, 100, 125, 474-76, 528-29 (for public
announcements of war and alliances and for diplomatic rituals). In general, see Benajmin G.
Kohl, "Political Attitudes of North Italian Humanists in the Late Trecento," Studies in Me-
dieval Culture 4 (1974): 418-24.
^^ Gauri, Cronaca carrarese, RIS, n.s., 17.1:59, 453-55, 498-501. Francesco Zabarella de-
livered sermons at the weddings of Gigliola da Carrara to Niccolo HI d'Este in 1397 and of
Giacomo da Carrara to Belfiore da Varano in 1403. See Zonta, Zabarella, 30, 33-34; and
Ester Pastorello, "Un'orazione inedita del Card. Zabarella per le nozze di Belfiore Varano
con Giacomo da Carrara," Atti e memorie della R. deputazione di storia patria per le province
delle Marche, n.s., 8 (1912): 121-28.
^ Gatari, Cronaca carrarese, RIS, n.s., 17.1:138 (funeral of Petrarch at Arqua, 1374); 158-
59 (funeral of Fina Buzzacarini, wife of Francesco il Vecchio, 1378), 165 (commemoration
of Luciano Doria, admiral of the Genoese fleet, 1379); 440-44 (funeral of Francesco il Vec-
chio, 1393); 463 (funerals of Pataro Buzzacarini and Giacomino dei Vitaliani who were fatal-
ly wounded in the Paduan victory at Govemolo, 1397); 544-45 (funeral of Taddea d'Este,
wife of Francesco Novello, 1404); 560 (funeral of Alda da Gonzaga, wife of Francesco IE,
1405). The Cronaca also has a lengthy account of the funeral for Giangaleazzo Visconti at
Milan in 1402 (ibid., 492-96). Zabarella delivered a sermon at the funerals of Pataro Buzzaca-
rini (1397), Nicolo da Carrara (1398), Giovanni Ludovico Lambertazzi (1401), and Arcoano
Buzzacarini (1403). See further Margaret Plant, "Patronage in the Circle of the Carrara Fam-
ily: Padua, 1337-1405," in F. W. Kent and Patricia Simons with J. C. Eade, eds., Patronage,
Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy (Canberra: Humanities Research Centre Australia, and
Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1987), 177-81, 189-91; and John M. McManamon, Funeral
Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of Italian Humanism (Chapel Hill, N.C., and London: Univ.
of North Carolina Press, 1989), 292.
42 CHAPTER 3
itics of spectacle. That is clear in his lengthy description of the funeral com-
memoration organized for Francesco da Carrara il Vecchio on 19 and 20
November 1393. After the elder Francesco had died in prison, Giangaleazzo
Visconti released his body for burial in Padua. In his description of the
events, Vergerio first emphasized their consonance with classical practice.
Romans had used commemorative memorials like funeral masks and tombs
to inspire the populace to heroic service of the state. The local remains of
such tombs still testified to Padua's greatness in Roman times.^* Vergerio
then described the composition of the funeral procession which accompa-
nied the former despot to his burial. The procession became a way to
render the city-state visible and to intimate the proper political hierarchy,
which culminated in Carrara leadership.^'
The vowed religious and the clergy of the city and surrounding country-
side led the procession to endow it with an immediate air of the sacred.
Next came a contingent of destitute Paduans, to whom the regime had
given new clothing for the occasion. Behind them marched those individu-
als who had benefitted from the amnesty declared by Francesco Novello.
The regime thus placed signs of generous paternalism near the front of the
line of march. The heart of the procession consisted of the governing elite,
grouped around the bier of the despot. The bier itself comprised the central
element, and it was accompanied by the most trusted collaborators of the
Carrara family. Immediately behind the bier came Francesco Novello and
his eldest sons. He thus signaled to all present his intention to govern by
following his father's policies. The representatives of allied foreign powers
accompanied the Carrara in the procession as they had promised to do in
the struggle against Visconti aggression.
Following the procession, parallel rites for the deceased further un-
derlined the basic political division of Paduan political society into elite
28 ppv, De dignissimo funebri apparatu, RIS 16:189A-B: "Apud quos, cum optima ratio-
ne facta omnia intelllgam, Ille in primis percelebris antiquitatis mos ingenue mihi probatus
est, ut, cum claros viros et bene de virtute meritos munere^ laudibus honoribusque vivos de-
corassent, plurimum tamen et mortuis officiorum praeberent, et diutumae, quoad possent,
clari nominis memoriae consulerent. Qua ratione cernimus vestustas illustrium virorum
imagines, exesa situque ruentia sepulcra maiorum videmus, ac perpetua litterarum monimen-
ta legere avidi aliquando solemus, in quibus et de summis pace belloque confectis rebus et
de amplissimis superiorum nostrorum laudibus agitur."
^' Ibid., 16:190A-92C. See the description in Gatari's Cronaca carrarese, RIS, n.s.,
17.1:441-44. The Gatari made no mention of the presence of the poor and the criminals in
the procession, and they paired a member of the Carrara family with the ambassadors of
each of the allied states (Venice, Florence, Bologna, and Ferrara). A description of the entire
ritual was published by Giovanni Cittadella, Storia della dominazione carrarese in Padova
(Padua, 1842), 2:248-54.
classicizing Oratory 43
and masses. The majority of the population attended the funeral mass in
Padua's cathedral. Federigo da Venezia, a Dominican friar, delivered his
funeral sermon first in Latin and again in Italian to assure that as many
as possible could comprehend his words. While the rites proceeded in
church, the governing elite and foreign ambassadors had left the cathe-
dral to assemble in the courtyard of the Carrara Palace nearby. Seated
according to strict protocol, they listened to a Latin eulogy composed
by Giovanni Ludovico Lambertazzi, a lawyer and supporter of the
regime. The next day, the university likewise offered its commemora-
tion of the deceased despot, during which Francesco Zabarella delivered
the sermon in Latin. Francesco's body was permanently interred in a
monumental tomb in the baptistery.^°
Vergerio set himself apart from his fellow intellectuals, including those
within the humanist movement, by intuiting that humanists could use a
celebratory oration in the classical mode to enhance the political imagery of
occasional public ceremonies. The oration should make the intended polit-
ical significance clear to those who counted. Occasional or epideictic ora-
tory was the least favored of the three genres specified by classical theorists
of rhetoric. Those rhetoricians gave more attention to the judicial genre,
which orators employed to accuse or defend a citizen in the courtroom, and
to the deliberative genre, which orators used to advocate a course of policy
in a political assembly. The celebratory character of political ritual in
Vergerio 's day endowed epideictic oratory with greater vivacity and moved
the other two genres into the background.^ ^
Vergerio wrote two epideictic orations for ceremonies which marked
key events in the conflict between Giangaleazzo Visconti and the Car-
rara. The first commemorated the anniversary of the restoration of
Francesco Novello da Carrara to the office of lord of Padua. ^^ The
*• PPV, De dignissimo funebri apparatu, RIS 16:192C-93C, esp. 193A: "Interea princeps
et qui comitabantur, composito funere, in Curiam redeunt, ac suo quisque loco atque ordine
consederunt, ubi quadratis porticibus spatiosus erat locus, atris undique aulaeis instructxis."
^' On epideictic rhetoric, see Walter Beale, "Rhetorical Performative Discourse: A New
Theory of Epideictic," P^/oiop/ry and Rhetoric 11 (1978): 221-26; Paul Oskar Kristeller, /?e-
naissance Thought and Its Sources, Michael Mooney, ed. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1979), 236-38, 248-49; George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular
Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press,
1980), 73-75; and Nigel G. Wilson, "Epideictic Practice and Theory," in Menander Rhetor,
Donald A. Russell and Nigel G. Wilson, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 11-34.
" Following the suggestion of Leonardo Smith {Epist, 1 17n), David Robey ("Republicanism,"
8-9) assigned the oration a date of 1392, basing himself on the following remarks by Vergerio,
Oratio ad Franciscum luniorem, RIS 16:205D: "Veniunt itaque hoc ipso die perpetua memoria
posieritati consignando, quo iam tertio superiore anno, cum urbem reciperes teque ipsa reci-
44 CHAPTER 3 _^
speech sought to assure lasting reconciHation between the ruler and his
subjects. Vergerio recognized a need to dispel lingering suspicions on
both sides, given that elements of the Paduan elite had collaborated with
the regime established by Giangaleazzo Visconti. To achieve his pur-
pose, Vergerio painted two pictures of Padua: one under Visconti domi-
nation and the second under a restored Francesco Novello.^^ The juxta-
position of those images dramatized the damage wrought by Visconti
overlordship and the renewal achieved under the benevolent govern-
ment of Francesco Novello.
Vergerio declared that Padua had suffered gravely under Visconti
tyranny, and his first picture proved it. The violent pillaging by the
forces of occupation left the city deserted and in ruin. From a flourish-
ing urban center of civilization, Padua had regressed toward a state of
decay and abandonment. Vergerio crafted the oration in such a way that
he might gesture toward Padua's citadel {arx) to sear his point into the
memory of his listeners. Built as an armory to protect the entire citizen
body, the citadel had been stripped of its weaponry by a small clique of
perfidious collaborators with Visconti rule. So emptied of its store of
armaments, it constituted a metaphor for the city in its unprotected
state before avaricious predators.^'*
peret. . . ." Francesco Novello was designated signore in a public ceremony on 8 September 1390.
Correct Roman reckoning in such a case would be inclusive, but the awkward addition of
"superiore" by Vergerio makes me wonder if he might wish to indicate the year 1393. At that
juncture (September 1393), Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna had already begun to teach rhetoric
in Padua. In general, see McManamon, "Innovation," 9-11.
" Vergerio stitched the entire oration together using verbs of seeing and of mental
imagery: video (204A), cernerem (204B), aspicio (204C), videtis (204D), unde videre . . . vide-
rique . . . possum (204E), aspicis . . . agnoscis (205C), videbant . . . videres (206C), indue in
animum . . . illius noctis imaginem ... ex memoria colligo (206D), inspectante universe
populo (207A), aspicimus (209A), possum memorare (209D), quam grate se videndum
praebet . . . quam iucundum est animis . . . aspicere . . . quam gratum de se spectaculum facit
. . . postremo quam gratissime . . . videre te existimas (209E-210B), videmus (21 IB), quod
video (21 IC), videbis . . . videbis . . . videres (211C-D), vidisti (212A), cum viderem ... in
summo honore vidissem . . . viderem (212B), videre . . . iucundum est . . . videre banc urbem
(212C), videre soliti atque in his imaginibus et nati et enutriti . . . viderent . . . cernere fas est
. . . viderunt (212E), viderim (213A-B), vidisti quo pacto (213D), et vidimus et videmus
(214B), in studia mea respicio .. . imagines gloriae et virtutum docimienta colligeret (214E-15A).
'* PPV, Oratio ad Franciscum luniorem, RIS 16:209A-E, 212B-E, esp. 212D-E: "Urbs
vidua solitudine, frequens populus suspicione, tormentis, inedia afflictus, tecta inhabitata et
ruinae proxima, forum fraudibus atque avaritiae patens, Curia ornatissima quondam tum
spurcissimis hominibus habitata, arx immunita et (ut vere adiiciam) imminuta suspicionibus
parvisque consiliis referta, armis vero et reliquis impedimentis vacua penitus in qua tu pul-
cherrimum omnium gentium armamentarium constitueras, ut bello quae necessaria essent
abunde suppeditaret — arx, inquam, perpetuo reclusa, nuUis praeter paucissimis accessibilis."
Classicizing Oratory 45
Vergerio employed a second image to portray the transformation of
Padua that Francesco Novello effected, after he had fulfilled his vow to
be the first to breach the walls and liberate the city. Vergerio invited his
audience to look around the piazza in which they had assembled before
the Carrara Palace {Curia). There, the victorious soldiers of their despot
stood in formation, forces necessary to the city-state's survival in war-
time and a colorful embellishment to civic life in peacetime. Secondly,
crowds of young men attended the ceremony to demonstrate the patri-
otism that accompanied their regained freedom. Finally, the rest of the
citizenry and foreign residents (such as Vergerio) had turned out to ex-
press their gratitude. The ceremony and the oration formed one mes-
sage: public praise before such a willing audience indicated that peace ex-
isted once again within the walls of the city.^^
Vergerio further invited the crowd to see in that moment of celebra-
tion the visual representation of the restoration of legitimate govern-
ment. Under Francesco Novello, the proper organs of government had
begun to function: a council of the best citizens {collegium) to advise the
ruler, a popular assembly (parlamentum) to legislate, magistrates to dis-
pense justice, and a qualified special administrator in Michele da Rabat-
ta.^ The speech concluded with specific proposals for the governing
elite.''' Vergerio reminded the despot of the devastation wrought upon
the fields and fortified towns {municipia) of the Paduan countryside. The
destruction there had had deleterious effects on the city's marketplace.
His analysis was shrewd: from communal days the city's economy had
developed as the city succeeded in monopolizing the local market in
food and goods.'^ To stimulate recovery in the countryside, Vergerio
urged a series of measures that included subsidies, tax exemptions, and
an amnesty for disloyal farmers. For the city, Vergerio focused upon
two reforms. With ill-concealed self-interest, he urged Francesco Novello
35 ppY^ Oratio ad Franciscum luniorem, RIS 16:205D-E: "Cum enim ferro res ageretur,
abstinere verbis et ferro ac viribus confligere necesse fuit, quandoquidem non facile inter
strepitus hominum armorumque fragores verba pacis et laetitiae dici potuissent." On the
Carrara Reggia, see Plant, "Patronage," 181-85.
^ PPV, Oratto aJ Franciscum luniorem, RIS 16:209E-10B, 213A-D. Kohl, "Government
and Society," 207, pointed out that the only major communal office suppressed by the Car-
rara regime was the maggior consiglio, whose role was reduced to approving the election of
each Carrara to the despot's office.
^^ PPV, Oratio ad Franciscum luniorem, RIS 16:213D-14A.
^ Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante, 29-56. The model for Vergerio's description may well
have been Cicero's Actio secunda against Verres; see Beth Innocenti, "Towards a Theory of Vivid
Description as Practiced in Cicero's Verrine Orations," Rhetorica 12 (1994): 372.
46 CHAPTER 3
to restore the study of Latin letters and the other liberal arts.^' Second-
ly, he must assure a greater state of military preparedness on the part of
the citizenry in general and especially of key members of the Carrara
family. The Visconti threat had not disappeared.
Much of the speech commended to Francesco Novello the model of
his father, Francesco il Vecchio, who had undertaken protective mea-
sures for city and countryside and rewarded deserving individuals with
positions of responsibility regardless of their social background.'*^ Ver-
gerio developed that theme in a second oration that he composed for the
funeral obsequies of the elder Francesco. He sought to accomplish two
related goals: to foster loyalty to the Carrara regime and to make policy
recommendations to its members. To accomplish those ends, he played
upon the power of sight as he had in the previous discourse. He first of-
fered a verbal description of the panorama that he saw as he addressed
the gathered throng.'*^ The geographic components of the state — the
countryside, fortified towns, and capital city — were depicted in superla-
tive terms {uberrima, amplissima et omatissima, opulentissima). Vergerio
wove those components into a tapestry, emphasizing the symbiotic rela-
tionship that must be maintained if Padua's economy were to prosper.
As he singled out various groups of mourners who were present, he
recreated the order of the state which he had described in his account of
the funeral procession. He called attention to Francesco Novello and his
son to instill a sense of dynasty. The elements of greater dignity in the
state were named first: foreign ambassadors from allied states, the Car-
rara family, the clergy, the magnates from whom Francesco had chosen
his most trusted advisors, the soldiers, and the teachers of the liberal
arts. To emphasize that all orders were represented, he explicitly noted
the grief of the women of Padua and extended those feelings metaphori-
cally to the city's churches and civic buildings. At the funeral all of
Padua rallied around the Carrara ruler. Finally, by calling attention to
the "plebeian character" of the death of Francesco as a prisoner, he
^' In the peroration, RIS 16:214E-15B, Vergerio elaborated upon the need to patronize
the humanities. He posited a direct rapport between the lack of great orators and poets in
Padua and the lack of great deeds by her citizens. Humanist praise stimulated virtue; with-
out humanists, there had never been less call for virtue.
^° PPV, Oratio ad Franctscum luniorem, RIS 16:207B-C, 208A-C, 210A-B, 210D, 212B,
212C-D, 215A.
^' PPV, Oratio in funere Francisci Senioris, RIS 16:194E-95A, where the succession of
verbs reads: "intueor, aspicio, intelligo, prospecto, video, cemo." See also Robey, "Republi-
canism," 9.
classicizing Oratory 47
stressed the grave threat that war still presented to Paduan society. Gian-
galeazzo Visconti had overturned the proper political order/^
To console his audience for such widespread grief, Vergerio invited
them all to contemplate the great virtues that Francesco il Vecchio had
manifested in his life. Vergerio progressed in his description from
domestic to public virtues, mimicking the spread of power outward
from the Carrara household. In his private life, Francesco had acted
with special care on behalf of the men of proven worth. They had be-
come his friends and advisors. Vergerio treated the deeds of public life
in terms of war and peace. War appropriately came first; Padua had
found herself constantly at war during the last fifteen years of Frances-
co's reign. Francesco had adopted measures to assure the defense of the
entire state. As proof of his success in battle, one need only gaze upon
monuments built to recall his victories, including the chapel in which
Vergerio purportedly was speaking. In peacetime, Francesco had shown
himself a generous patron. He refurbished parts of the city, supported
the teachers of the studia humanitatis, and granted his soldiers appropri-
ate rewards.'*^ The policies that Vergerio had just celebrated were to
function as a blueprint for the rule of his son, Francesco Novello.
The third of Vergerio's Paduan speeches sought to win clemency for
Bartolomeo Cermisone, who had shifted his allegiance from the Carrara
to Giangaleazzo Visconti after the flight of Francesco Novello in No-
vember of 1388. Vergerio prepared his judicial defense by reminding the
despot that over a long period Cermisone had proven himself one of the
most reliable associates of the Carrara family. Bartolomeo had led the
troops of the Carrara into Verona in triumphant conquest just a few
years earlier. Vergerio then proceeded to appeal for clemency, exhorting
Francesco Novello to embrace the virtue that had reconciled Roman so-
ciety after the traumatic experience of the civil wars. There were miti-
gating factors for Cermisone's conduct. Cermisone had urged further re-
sistance rather than flight from Padua in 1388. Francesco could not hold
Cermisone accountable for the mistaken strategy that led to the capture
of his father and the temporary loss of Padua. Moreover, Francesco had
refused Cermisone's express desire to accompany him into exile. Gianga-
leazzo Visconti had forced Cermisone to serve him under threat of
death; Cermisone had submitted only on the condition that he never
have to bear arms against Francesco. The matter was eventually resolved
*^ PPV, Oratio m funere Francisci Senions, RIS 16:195B-D, 196B-D.
^' Ibid., 16:197A-E; and Plant, "Patronage," 187-89, 194-95.
48 CHAPTER 3
as part of the peace negotiations between Milan and Padua.^
When one compares Vergerio's orations to those of contemporaries in
Padua, in Italy, and in Europe, there can be no question of the originality
of his oratory. The clearest evidence emerges by comparing Vergerio's
funeral speech for Francesco il Vecchio to those delivered by Giovanni
Ludovico Lambertazzi and Francesco Zabarella5^ Lambertazzi and Zaba-
rella found the rhetorical inspiration for their methods of invention in the
preaching handbooks known as the artes praedicandi. Those lengthy treatis-
es offered clear and concise directives for writing a sermon that used a verse
from Scripture as its organizing theme. The preacher divided and subdivided
the theme into several parts and amplified each of the parts through logical
arguments, appropriate comparisons, and illustrative anecdotes. The pat-
terned sermons that Lambertazzi and Zabarella wrote for the funeral of
Francesco il Vecchio illustrate that the artes affected the development of
secular oratory. In the final analysis, it is fair to characterize both sermons
as syllogisms written large. The theme and initial divisions established a
series of qualities requisite for an outstanding ruler. In related subdivisions,
the two preachers adduced deeds from the life of Francesco il Vecchio to
prove that he possessed the specified qualities. That made it possible for
them to argue that Francesco typified the highest ideals proposed for the
prince in the Bible.
■" PPV, Oratio pro fortissimo viro Cermisone, Epist., 433-35. In the peace treaty signed
at Genoa in January of 1392, a clause specified that Cermisone should have his property in
Padua returned to him. By 1397, however, Cermisone had renewed his allegiance to Gianga-
leazzo Visconti. See Smith, Epist, 432-33 n. 1; Tiziana Pesenti, Professori e promotori di me-
dicina nello Studio di Padova dal 1405 al 1509: Repertorio bio-bibliografico, Contributi alia
storia dell'Universita di Padova 16 (Padua: Centro per la storia dell'Universita, and Trieste:
LINT, 1984), 72-73; and Michael E. Mallett, "Cermisone, Bartolomeo," DBI liJ75.
*^ On the three funeral speeches, see McManamon, "Innovation," 12-24; and McMana-
mon, Funeral Oratory, 8-11, 91-93. For the artes praedicandi, see Paul Oskar Kristeller,
"Rhetoric in Medieval and Renaissance Culture," in James J. Murphy, ed.. Renaissance Elo-
quence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and
London: Univ. of California Press, 1983), 13-15; John W. O'Malley, "Erasmus and the His-
tory of Sacred Rhetoric: The Ecclesiastes of 1535," Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 5
(1985): 4-6; and David L. D'Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Diffused from Paris
before 1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985), 162-80,
242-48. For the affects of thematic preaching on secular oratory, see D'Avray, "Sermons on
the Dead before 1350," Studi medievali, ser. 3, 31, no. 1 (1990): 208-23; and Gianfranco Fio-
ravanti, "Sermones in lode della filosofia e della logica a Bologna nella prima meta del XIV
secolo," in Dino Buzzetti, Maurizio Ferriani, and Andrea Tabarroni, eds., L'insegnamento
della logica a Bologna nel XIV secolo, Studi e Memorie per la storia dell'Universita di
Bologna, n.s., 8 (Bologna: Istituto per la Storia dell'Universita, 1992), 166-72. In general, see
Ronald G. Witt, "Civic Humanism and the Rebirth of the Ciceronian Oration," Modem
Language Quarterly 51 (1990): 171-78.
classicizing Oratory 49
Vergerio, in contrast, worked from the principles for composing a
public speech specified in the handbooks written by Cicero and other
Roman rhetors. His oration had no theme, no appeal to authorities to
establish theoretical propositions, and no syllogistic reasoning to prove
a conclusion about the quality of Francesco's rule. Rather, in keeping
with the theory of pathos as a mode of persuasion, he sought to exploit
the emotions of the moment by focusing initially on the universal grief
engendered by the loss of Francesco il Vecchio and then upon the con-
soling character of his great deeds on behalf of the entire city-state. Ver-
gerio also demonstrated greater attention to style, using figures of speech
like apostrophe and antithesis to heighten the emotional impact of his
words. Likewise, his purpose differed from that of Lambertazzi and
Zabarella. Both of them sought to argue to a logical conclusion predicat-
ed upon proofs that Francesco il Vecchio possessed the virtues that
made for an outstanding ruler. Vergerio attempted to depict an image in
words that would inspire admiration and imitation, especially by Fran-
cesco Novello and his circle of oligarchs.
Examining funeral orations that survive from other Italian city-states
and from Europe leads one to the same conclusion. Among the human-
ists of the late Trecento and early Quattrocento, Pierpaolo Vergerio was
the first to exploit the medium of classicizing oratory. He advanced his
proposal for reform of oratory according to classical standards by writ-
ing examples of such oratory. Realizing that vivid sights inspired human
beings, Vergerio proposed that humanists create such sights in words.
To accomplish his political purposes, Vergerio used the most vivid and
memorable images. Those images stood in sharp contrast to the syllo-
gisms employed by the leading orators of Padua, Giovanni Ludovico
Lambertazzi and Francesco Zabarella. Like the visual artists of the day,
humanists might effect radical change in their portraits by adopting clas-
sical standards for style and substance. They would also enhance their
own political role, once they had demonstrated the ability to adduce evi-
dence before the listeners' eyes and to shape the way in which the
listeners interpreted that evidence.'**
^ See D'Avray, "Sermons on the Dead," 218-23; and Ann C. Vasaly, Representations:
Images of the World in Ciceronian Rhetoric (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: Univ. of
California Press, 1993), 50-59, 81-87.
CHAPTER 4
Petrarch's Legacy
Pierpaolo Vergerio proposed to exercise his humanist talents in the
public square of the city. However, they bore first fruit in an
important scholarly task. Paduan members of the circle of Petrarch
chose Vergerio as the editor of the Africa, the epic poem in which
Petrarch portrayed Publius Cornelius Scipio as the embodiment of re-
publican virtues. Hoping to be best remembered for the poem, Petrarch
continued to revise the text throughout his life, but he left it incomplete
when he died in 1374. Already in 1377, Coluccio Salutati had urged the
circle of Paduan scholars in possession of Petrarch's manuscripts to pub-
lish the work. Salutati wanted an editor to polish the text; to enhance
the edition, Salutati also urged that the editor add a preface in praise of
the work and a metrical series of argumenta summarizing the content of
each of its nine books. After the Paduans had sent Salutati a copy of the
autograph with Petrarch's marginal notes on metrical and historical
problems in the text, Salutati amplified them with his own comments
on the first two books. Although Salutati even offered to pay the costs,
the Paduan circle did not choose him for the task.^
Vergerio may have received his commission as editor for the work as
early as 1393, the probable year of his second sojourn in Florence. Ver-
' See Aldo S. Bernardo, Petrarch, Scipio and the "Africa": The Birth of Humanism's
Dream (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1962), 168-75; Vincenzo Fera, Antichi editori
e lettori deWAfrica," Itinerari eruditi 2 (Messina: Universita degli studi. Centre di studi
umanistici, 1984), 17-34; and Ronald G. Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works,
and Thought of Coluccio Salutati, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6
(Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1983), 185-89. Bernardo offers the fullest treatment of
the poem as an expression of Petrarchan ideals and scholarship.
52 CHAPTER 4
gerio would have left Padua shortly after the funeral of Francesco da
Carrara il Vecchio in November of 1393 and remained in Florence until
the following spring to study civil law. University records indicate that
Vergerio was back in Padua to resume his law studies there when the
school year began on 18 October 1394. His letters and official records
further establish that he stayed in Padua until the end of the academic
year in 1397, except for brief trips away from the city during the sum-
mer recess. While in Florence, Vergerio took advantage of the opportu-
nity to discuss the edition of the Africa with Salutati and saw the chan-
cellor's notes on the text. By November of 1396, Vergerio had finished
his edition.^ In the meantime, he began to wrestle with Petrarch's leg-
acy to the humanist movement.
Vergerio actually wrote a letter to Petrarch in the name of Cicero,
defending the Roman politician against charges which Petrarch made in
1345. In the most reliable codices, Vergerio's letter bears a date of 1
August 1394.^ Francesco Zabarella likewise wrote a letter to Petrarch in
defense of Cicero. When free from university obligations, Vergerio and
Zabarella discussed the works of Cicero and amused themselves by en-
gaging in writing exercises. Their letters may be the fruit of such a dis-
cussion, which led them to compete in composing the better rebuttal of
Petrarch's charges."^ The letters should be read against the background
of Paduan politics as well. In June of 1394, Francesco Novello refused to
^ Epist, 243-44: "sive quod ibidem [Florence] iura civilia, aliquot / interiectis annis, cum
tu iam abesses, audivi." See further Leonardo Smith, ibid., xvi, 204-6 n. 1; David Robey,
"P. P. Vergerio the Elder: Republicanism and Civic Values in the Work of an Early Italian
Humanist," Past and Present, no. 58 (February 1973): 6, 33-34; and Tiziana Pesenti, Profes-
son e promotori di medicina nello Studio di Padova dal 1405 al 1509: Repertorio hio-bihliogra-
ftco, Contributi alia storia dell'Universita di Padova 16 (Padua: Centre per la storia
dell'Universita, and Trieste: LINT, 1984), 161. Vincenzo Fera, in his Antichi editori, 83-88,
and in his La revisione petrarchesca deWAfrica," Studi e testi 3 (Messina: Universita degli
studi, Centro di studi umanistici, 1984), 8-9, supplies evidence that the work was circulating
by November of 1396. Fera advanced the hypothesis that cod. Laurenziana Acquisti e Doni
441 is a copy of Vergerio's working manuscript for the edition; see his "Annotazioni inedite
del Petrarca al testo AdV Africa" IMU 23 (1980): 1-3, 12-13, 24-25.
^ Smith, Epist., 437n. The letter must be dated after 1392, when Salutati had Cicero's
Epistolae ad familiares copied from the recently rediscovered manuscript.
^ Epist., 107 ("minorem seria et iucundae scripturae sibi horam vindicant") and ibid.,
153-54 ("Domi nos Cicero, eloquentiae atque honestatis fons, aperiebatur. Ilium regressi
magnis desideriis adibamus et / in longam noctem audiebamus attenti"). Agostino Sottili,
"La questione ciceroniana in una lettera di Francesco Zabarella a Francesco Petrarca (tav.
rV)," Quademi per la storia dell'Universita di Padova 6 (1973): 30, 38, 54, argues that Verge-
rio's letter depends upon that of Zabarella. I suspect that discussions between Zabarella and
Vergerio explain the similarities. If there is dependence, it is more likely to be that of Zaba-
rella upon Vergerio, who knew Cicero better.
Petrarch's Legacy 53
pay the tribute to Giangaleazzo Visconti agreed upon in the peace treaty
of 1392.^ That act of defiance also angered Venice, Francesco's powerful
ally, and threatened to plunge the Italian states into a new war. To chal-
lenge the Carrara ruler's aggressive stance might well compromise one's
standing at court or even bring one's life into danger.
Vergerio used his letter to articulate a preference for Cicero's activist
style of humanism over the more reserved style of Petrarch. In 1345, Pe-
trarch had written to Cicero to censure his decision to abandon the leis-
ure of retirement as an old man and throw himself again into the polit-
ical battles of the Roman revolution.^ As a result of that action, Cicero
compromised the lofty principles that he had previously advocated in
speeches and writings and set in motion the chain of events that led to
his assassination. Petrarch enumerated the inconsistent actions that char-
acterized Cicero's final years. He abandoned the good advice of his
friends and relatives as well as the cause of Pompey, his longtime pa-
tron. Instead, he embraced the cause of demagogues like Julius Caesar
and Octavian. Yet he lashed out at Mark Anthony in invectives filled
with rage {furor). Petrarch could find no positive motives to justify that
series of about-faces. Cicero could not have acted out of love for the re-
public, which by his own admission had ceased to exist after Caesar's
victory over Pompey. Nor could he claim to act out of sincere loyalty
or defense of liberty {libertas); otherwise, he would never have curried
favor with Octavian. Enticed by the false splendor of glory, Cicero
acted impetuously, as though he were an adolescent and not a wise old
sage. He should have remained in philosophical retreat as a silent protest
against the destruction of the republic by the warlords of the Roman
revolution.
The consequences for Cicero were dramatic: he had returned to poli-
tics disarmed of his greatest political weapon, his ethos as a public
speaker. Ancient rhetorical theory had identified three ways for the
orator to persuade an audience: by the strength of his arguments {logos),
by the emotional response aroused within his listeners (pathos), and by
the convincing character of his person {ethos). The Roman tradition of
* M. Chiara Gangiizza Billanovich, "Carrara, Francesco da, il Novello," DBI 20:658.
^ Lefamiliari 24.3 (Rossi and Bosco, eds., 4:225-27). See further Giuseppe Billanovich,
"Petrarca e Cicerone," in Letteratura cUssica e umanistica, vol. 4 of Miscellanea Giovanni
Mercati, Studi e testi 124 (Vatican City: BAV, 1946), 88-106; and Hans Baron, "The
Memory of Cicero's Roman Civic Spirit in the Medieval Centuries and in the Florentine
Renaissance," /n Search of Florentine Civic Humanism: Essays on the Transition from Medieval
to Modem Thought (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1988), 1:120-21.
54 CHAPTER 4
public speaking had broadened the question of character and made it
central to matters of political persuasion. Whereas Aristotle had circum-
scribed ethos to achieving credibility during one's speech, the Romans
felt that the values advocated had to be consistent with one's previous
life. For the Romans, ethos became an all-embracing integrity. By his
praise for tyrants like Caesar and Augustus and his censure of Anthony,
Cicero had irreparably vitiated his lifelong commitment to republican-
ism.'^
Zabarella and Vergerio took issue with Petrarch's historical interpre-
tation and his values. In defending Cicero, they accused Petrarch of un-
derestimating the importance of the active life for the humanist intel-
lectual. Zabarella wrote a shorter and less impassioned defense, which
began where Petrarch had ended, with Cicero's death. Whereas Petrarch
had rightly asserted that Cicero might have enjoyed blessed leisure in
philosophical retreat, Cicero himself had the courage to take a stand on
controversial matters that placed his life in danger. Given that nothing
was more excellent than the pursuit of virtue, Cicero's death must be la-
beled an act worthy of the best philosopher. His political commitment
late in life harmonized with his deeds as a young politician, when he
had saved Rome from the threat of Catiline. His values were consistent
and his eloquence in no way compromised.
Zabarella then moved on to Cicero's change in attitude toward Julius
Caesar. He had appropriately adapted his public stand to the evolution
of Caesar's politics. Zabarella thus suggested the wisdom of pragmatism
in politics, a theme which Vergerio also developed. Cicero had censured
Caesar when he seemed to practice a demagogic politics (popularis Cae-
sar) and supported him when he seemed to aid the republic {reipublicae
frugi). Likewise, Cicero had denounced Anthony for attempting to
plunder Rome's resources. Zabarella closed his letter in rather gentle
terms. In his estimation, Petrarch really wished to lose the debate. His
personal preference for a solitary life of otium led him wrongly to cen-
^ Le familiari, Rossi and Bosco, eds., 4:226-27: "Doleo vicem tuam, amice, et errorum
pudet ac miseret, iamque cum eodem Bruto 'his artiVbus nihil tribuo, quibus te instructissi-
mum fuisse scio.' [Cic. Ad Brut. 1.17.5] Nimirum quid enim iuvat alios docere, quid omatis-
simis verbis semper de virtutibus loqui prodest, si te interim ipse non audias? Ah quanto sa-
tius fuerat philosopho praesertim in tranquillo rure senuisse. . . ." On ethos, see George Ken-
nedy, 777e Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World 300 B.C.-A.D. 300 (Princeton: Princeton
Univ. Press, 1972), 57, 100-101; Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular
Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press,
1980), 68, 80-81; and James M. May, Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos
(Chapel Hill, N.C., and London: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1988), 3-12.
Petrarch's Legacy 55
sure Cicero for sacrificing his life in public negotium}
Vergerio shared certain lines of defense with his esteemed mentor
and friend. Both sought to demolish the contention that Cicero had be-
trayed his integrity by returning to public service. Rather, the act was a
dramatic endorsement of a life dedicated to public service. Moreover,
Vergerio similarly evaluated Cicero's conduct toward Julius Caesar.
Cicero utilized praise or blame depending upon the course of actions
that Caesar had adopted. Yet there are significant differences between
the two letters. Vergerio wrote in the name of Cicero. Proficient in dec-
lamation, Vergerio played the historical person, and thus indicated a
close identification with Cicero as the ideal orator. Petrarch had accused
Cicero of behaving like a headstrong adolescens. With obvious relish,
Vergerio played that same role in criticizing Petrarch. Petrarch's accusa-
tions undermined the suppositions upon which Vergerio intended to
build his career. He still hoped to make his humanist skills the basis for
a career in politics. Finally, Vergerio knew the Ciceronian corpus better
than Zabarella, and he demonstrated a more subtle understanding of
Roman politics.
Vergerio began by asserting that Cicero had always been active in
politics, on rare occasions in arms but usually as an orator. One should
not be surprised by the flexibility of his positions: that followed from
the variation in historical circumstances and human motives. Nor was
Petrarch realistic in imagining Cicero free of rivals. Though politics rep-
resented the way of life most beneficial for others, it attracted its fair
share of immoral persons. Any individual of integrity could expect to
arouse jealousy among some of his peers. Finally, one should not equate
Cicero's pragmatism with a lack of ideological conviction. He refused to
sacrifice the republic for the sake of peace. The republican system stood
threatened when a member of the elite no longer had the possibility to
speak freely. Safeguarding free speech was, for Vergerio, the litmus test
of authentic government.'
' Sottili, "Laquestione ciceroniana," 56-57. In general, see Maristella Lorch, "Petrarch,
Cicero, and the Classical Pagan Tradition," in Albert Rabil, Jr., ed.. Humanism in Italy, vol.
1 of Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsyl-
vania Press, 1988), 77-82.
' EpisL, 438-40, esp. 439: "Quam ob causam ut variarem necesse fuit aliquando et
animum et orationem, quando tanta erat in rebus, tanta in moribus hominum variatio. Ita
ergo multa et dixi et deploravi, ac multa ex sententia, crebro ut fit, variavi." For the Roman
conception of freedom of speech, see Amaldo Momigliano, "La liberta di parola nel mondo
antico," Rivista storica italiana 83 (1971): 520-22.
56 CHAPTER 4
Those positions are spelled out in his response to the specific charges
that Petrarch made. Once civil war erupted in Rome, pitting the faction
of Pompey against that of Julius Caesar, Cicero had to abandon his fun-
damental quest for social peace. His alliances throughout the revolution
were dictated by his perceptions of justice and worth {dignitas). That
was especially true of his attitude toward Julius Caesar, Octavian, and
Mark Anthony. Vergerio claimed that Cicero praised Caesar as long as
he was convinced that Caesar was not seeking personal power but the
common good. When Cicero felt that Caesar was driven by uncon-
trolled desire (libido) to subvert the public order, Cicero turned to forth-
right criticism. Vergerio intuited that Cicero never really trusted Caesar.
In the end, Caesar's clemency had to be interpreted as an expression of
absolute power, abrogating the constitutional order of laws enacted by
the Senate. ^°
Vergerio likewise contended that Cicero had awarded praise or
blame to the other revolutionary leaders as they so deserved (pro meri-
to). Vergerio's discussion of the case of Octavian is especially indicative
of his own aristocratic politics. Octavian earned the approval of Cicero
when he safeguarded "the standing of the Senate, the liberty of the
people, and the comforts of the plebeians." He viewed the Roman Re-
public as an oligarchy [senatus) acting on behalf of the politically active
element (populus). The governing class bore a responsibility of paternal
care toward the bulk of the citizenry (plebs). Octavian forfeited his op-
portunity to become a true leading citizen (princeps civis) by turning to
tyranny. Cicero preferred to lose his life rather than sit by and watch
Roman liberty (libertas) destroyed. ^^
In the end, Cicero had proven to be a model of rhetorical ethos. He
had consistently taught that true philosophy implies political commit-
ment.^^ Only a coward fled from activism when it endangered one's
life. Had Cicero had his wish, he would have given his life defending
Rome against Catiline. His murder by Anthony's hired assassins, with
the tacit complicity of Octavian, represented the supreme gesture of a
life dedicated to defending the republic. Petrarch wrongly claimed that
'° Eptst., 440-41. For Petrarch's turn toward a more positive interpretation of Julius
Caesar, see Hans Baron, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Political
Literature (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968), 29-40.
" Epist., 442-43.
'^ Ibid., 444, where Vergerio adduced passages from Cicero Tusc. 5.4.10, Div. 2.1.1, and
Att. 10.8.8.
' Petrarch's Legacy 57
Cicero had lived in a way that was inconsistent with his teachings,
Cicero's political ideal remained the free expression of one's convictions
within the ruling aristocracy. He never reduced that ideal to attachment
to an individual leader.
Contemporary scholars since Hans Baron have generally seen this de-
bate in terms of republican liberty and tyranny. ^^ The protagonists —
Petrarch, Zabarella, and Vergerio — saw it in terms of political involve-
ment by a humanist orator in the revolutionary struggles of the Roman
Republic. Vergerio vigorously endorsed the historical relevance of
Roman republican thought and the appropriate commitment of a hu-
manist to public service. Ideal liberty {libertas) for Cicero never involved
the creation of a political system that recognized some sort of inalien-
able right. Nor did it grant to powerful members of society the right to
act in whatever way they pleased. Roman political society had enacted
laws which granted certain rights to the members of that society.
Romans felt that liberty should contain an element of restraint. It also
stood in dynamic tension with the notion of a prestige {dignitas) pos-
sessed by the dominant element in Roman political society. Social
concord depended in large part on respect for liberty on the part of the
powerful.'^
In agreement with Cicero's ideas, Vergerio defended the appropriate-
ness of such a political society in his own day. Those who formed part
of the ruling elite must always be free to express their political opinions.
When individuals placed self-interest or factional control over the com-
mon good {res publico), Roman society was plunged into violence and
chaos. Roman historical legend closely associated unrestrained sexual de-
sire {libido) with political violence and lust for power. ^^ The first Ro-
man revolution against Etruscan tyranny purportedly gained revenge for
" Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republi-
can Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1955;
rev. ed., Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), 121-29; David Robey, "Republicanism,"
3-17; and Robey, "Aspetti deH'umanesimo vei^eriano," in Viuore Branca and Same Gra-
ciotti, eds., L'umanesimo in Istria, Civilta veneziana: Studi 38 (Florence: Olschki, 1983), 11-
12.
'* See Chaim Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic
and Early Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1950), 7-30; and Neal Wood,
Cicero's Social and Political Thought (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Univ. of California
Press, 1988), 70-104, 150-51, 189, 194-95.
'^ Ann C. Vasaly, "Personality and Power: Livy's Depiction of the Appii Claudii in the
First Pentad," Transactions of the American Philological Association 117 (1987): 203-26, devel-
ops this same theme with regard to Livy's treatment of the Appii Claudii. The Paduan Reg-
gia had a "Camera of Lucretia."
58 CHAPTER 4
the brutal rape of Lucretia. Both the rape and the poHtical designs of the
Tarquins constituted a passion to possess unlawful power over free
individuals of worth. Moreover, the Tarquins had perfidiously attempt-
ed to conceal their designs to violate the body politic under the guise of
demagogic populism. Vergerio's Cicero perceived the same sort of unre-
strained desire for domination at critical moments in the evolution of
the policies of Caesar, Octavian, and Anthony.
The surest political conviction expressed by Vergerio in his letter,
therefore, endorses the viability of the republican system of Roman gov-
ernment because that system emphasized the political worth of proven
individuals within the context of a restricted aristocracy. It may be an
endorsement of Florence's republican system against the tyranny of
Giangaleazzo Visconti, as Hans Baron has argued. That would be true
insofar as Florence represented the sort of harmonious oligarchy that
Cicero and Vergerio applauded and insofar as Giangaleazzo represented
a demagogic tyrant who trampled upon the prestige of the politically
elite in grabbing absolute power. It may also be a warning to Francesco
Novello. Insofar as the Carrara despot operated as the princeps civis ac-
cording to the model of the good Octavian and not as an absolute ty-
rant, he deserved public support. However, Vergerio saw dangerous
demagoguery in Francesco Novello 's aggressive policies which threat-
ened the stability of Paduan society. Through Cicero, Vergerio carefully
delineated the proper power that the Carrara should exercise in their
state.
Vergerio left no ambiguity regarding his position on the social role
of a humanist intellectual. In opposition to Petrarch's lifelong ambiva-
lence about political activism, Vergerio offered an unconditional en-
dorsement.^^ In fact, Vergerio urged that humanists express their free
convictions and that societies contrive political structures to safeguard
free speech. Genuinely free public advocacy became the criterion for the
'^ Regarding Petrarch's limited political activity, see Jerrold E. Seigel, Rhetoric and Phi-
losophy in Renaissance Humanism: The Union of Eloquence and Wisdom, Petrarch to Valla
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968), 31-62; Manlio Pastore Stocchi, "La biblioteca del
Petrarca," in // Trecento, vol. 2 of Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Pozza, 1976), 536-57;
and Nicholas Mann, "Petrarca e la cancelleria veneziana," in // Trecento, vol. 2 of Storia
della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Pozza, 1976), 517-35. In general, see O. B. Hardison, Jr., "The
Orator and the Poet: The Dilemma of Humanist Literature," The Journal of Medieval and
Renaissance Studies 1 (1971): 33-44; Ronald G. Witt, "Medieval ars dictaminis and the Be-
ginnings of Humanism: A New Construction of the Problem," Renaissance Quarterly 35
(1982): 1-35; and John W. O'Malley, "Grammar and Rhetoric in the Pietas of Erasmus,"
The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988): 81-98.
Petrarch's Legacy 59
authentic humanist and the authentic pohtical society. Internal peace
would be best assured when the consciousness of the powerful few was
raised. Humanists would assist the proper functioning of government by
awarding appropriate measures of praise or censure for the political con-
duct of the elite. Public panegyric and written history became the priv-
ileged media through which humanists might instill civic values and
exemplify their realization in historical deeds.
Around 1395, Zabarella and Vergerio decided to test their convic-
tions before a Paduan audience. On the anniversary of Petrarch's death
(19 July), Vergerio preached a sermon on the life, morals, and learning
of Petrarch. In 1397, after Zabarella had become archpriest of Padua's
cathedral, he made the ceremony an annual event. Using his previous
experience in praising Saint Jerome in a public panegyric, Vergerio or-
ganized his sermon by drawing primarily upon Petrarch's autobiographi-
cal letter, the Epistola ad posteros (ca. 1361). To fill in those years of Pe-
trarch's life that were not treated in the Epistola, Vergerio researched
other Petrarchan sources.^'' In the final analysis, however, the entire
structure of the sermon reflects Vergerio 's epistemological presupposi-
tions and cultural priorities.
Throughout the sermon, Vergerio communicated a sense of Pe-
trarch's inner restlessness.^^ His youthful infatuation with Laura ended
with her sudden death in the plague of 1348. Vergerio judged the affair
in generous terms. Petrarch's libido was typical of adolescence, particu-
larly in the strength of his passion [acerrimus). However, it was a love
marked by admirable moral qualities, especially in Petrarch's dedication
to Laura alone. Vergerio then underlined the importance of Petrarch's
conversion from the study of civil law to the study of the humanities.
With his father's encouragement, Petrarch had spent four years at the
'^ Ernest H. Wilkins, Petrarch's Later Years, Publication 70 (Cambridge, Mass.: The
Mediaeval Academy of America, 1959), 268, states that the "Letter to Posterity" {Sen. 18.1)
was mainly wrinen before 1361. Petrarch did make subsequent insertions in the text from
1370 until his death in 1374. For the ceremony in Padua, see Giuseppe Billanovich, Pefrarc**
letterato I: Lo scrittoio di Petrarca, Raccolta di studi e testi 16 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e
Letteratura, 1947), 361-68. Because Vergerio drew so heavily upon the letter of Petrarch,
some historians have rated his sermon of minimal historical importance; see, e.g., Carmela
Marchente, Ricerche intomo al "De principibus Carrariensihus et gestis eorum liber" attribuito
a Pier Paolo Vergerio seniore, Universita di Padova: Pubblicazioni della Facolta di lettere e
filosofia 23 (Padua: CEDAM, 1946), 56-60. Marcello Aurigemma has offered a more bal-
anced assessment; see Aurigemma, "II Sermo de vita Francisci Petrarchae di Pier Paolo Ver-
gerio," in Giorgio Varanini and Palmiro Pinagli, eds., Studi filologici, letterari e storici in me-
moria di Guido Favati, Medioevo e umanesimo 28-29 (Padua: Antenore, 1977), 1:33-34.
'* Aurigemma, "D Sermo,'' 36-50.
60 CHAPTER 4
University of Montpellier and three at the University of Bologna in pur-
suit of his law degree. Vergerio stressed that the charged encounter with
his father, when Petrarch had tried to hide his literature books, mani-
festly revealed his ambivalence toward a career as a lawyer. Eventually,
he expressed his feelings to his father and, after his father's death, defini-
tively abandoned law for his literary and scholarly pursuits. His sensi-
tive personality revealed itself during the peregrinations of his humanist
years. He lashed out in bitter invective against those who criticized his
growing fame. He became more and more frustrated as he tried to com-
plete the Africa, and he became upset in his later years if anyone merely
mentioned the poem. Finally, Petrarch continued to benefit from the pa-
tronage of wealthy rulers such as the Visconti and Carrara despite re-
peated claims to contemn riches because they disturbed one's inner
peace.
Vergerio showed his willingness to deflate the myth of Petrarch — one
of the poet's most successful creations. Yet Vergerio also granted Pe-
trarch the praise due to him. First, Petrarch combined a brilliant mind
with love for recognition. Vergerio acknowledged that Petrarch had
worked diligently to become Europe's leading intellectual, a position for
which he possessed solid qualifications. Secondly, among Petrarch's aca-
demic interests, his love for poetry and moral philosophy dominated.
That led to a concomitant disgust with the bustle of cities like Avignon
and a love for the rural solitude of the Vaucluse. As a humanist, Pe-
trarch was most at home in the amenable surroundings of that lush val-
ley. In fact, Vergerio claimed that, in that setting, Petrarch had con-
ceived or begun or brought to completion his greatest writings. Late in
life, however, Petrarch had begun to shift his interests toward sacred let-
ters and to matters of history and eloquence.^' It is as though he had
envisioned the turn that Vergerio sought to give to humanism.
Vergerio subsequently appended the sermon as a preface to the edi-
tion of the Africa. He also added the Argumenta, a metric summary of
the content of each of the nine books of the poem itself.^° The original
suggestion for such prefatory material stemmed from Salutati, and Ver-
gerio accepted it. Yet Vergerio chose a different approach to the edition
than that proposed by Salutati. Salutati had lobbied for a revised text
that would take into account the marginal notes that Petrarch left and
" Petrarcae vita, Solerti, ed., 294-96, 298-99.
^° Smith, Epist, 204-6 n. 3; and G. KiWznovich, Petrarca letterato, 368.
" Petrarch's Legacy 61
Salutati himself expanded. Although Vergerio did see Petrarch's auto-
graph and Salutati's notes, he rejected Salutati's proposed revisions. He
convinced the Paduan heirs responsible for Petrarch's works that they
should publish a diplomatic edition, which revealed that the poem had
many incomplete lines and several large gaps in the narrative .^^ While
reading an autograph copy of Petrarch's letters, Vergerio had found a
postilla stating Petrarch's desire to have the Africa burned.^ Helping
Petrarch to conform as closely as possible to his Virgilian model, Verge-
rio issued the poem in its incomplete form. When the edition began to
circulate in the second half of 1396, Vergerio received praise for having
left the imperfections in the text.^ Consequently, Petrarch's reputation
as an epic Latin poet, on which he had built a healthy portion of his
fame, was somewhat diminished. There are thus parallels between the
less-than-flattering impression of Petrarch that followed upon Vergerio 's
edition and the rather melancholic scholar who emerged from Vergerio 's
sermon.
Vergerio's scrutiny of Petrarch's life and major Latin poem con-
firmed his own priorities as a humanist and distinguished them from the
older generations. Rather than the life of poet in solitude, Vergerio pre-
ferred the political struggles of the orator in the city. Even so, from
1394 to 1397, Vergerio may have readily identified with the restlessness
of Petrarch's spirit. Once he had completed his studies of medicine, he
began another degree in civil law. Like Petrarch, Vergerio seemed caught
in a dilemma between humanist and legal studies. Legal studies offered
the successful student greater social recognition and possible employ-
ment in government. Yet Vergerio bridled at the literalism of exponents
of jurisprudence; in his mind, legislation marked the beginning and not
the end of a noble quest for equity. Like all texts, the code of law was
not self-interpreting; in every instance human beings had to determine
the proper application of the text.^'* A legalistic mentality poorly
^' For example, Petrarch had never versified a lengthy account of the dream of Ennius
in Book 9 of the epic. Vergerio published the preparatory version that Petrarch had written
in prose.
^ Fera, La revisione petrarchesca, 38-39.
^ See Nicola Festa, ed., L'Africa, Edizione nazionale delle opere di Francesco Petrarca
1 (Florence, 1926), lii-liii; Smith, Epist., 54n; Robey, "Republicanism," 33-34; and esp. Fera,
Antichi editori, 88-94, 100-104. Niccolo Niccoli carried a copy of the edition from Padua
to Florence to share it with the circle of humanists there.
^* Epist, 130, 158, 160-61, 168-69, esp. 160-61: "Sed altae, mihi crede, et Veritas et
aequitas magnisque latibulis abditae sunt; utque inter multas falsitates Veritas, ita et inter
multas iniquitates quod iustiun est latet, neque est facile inter utrumque discemere. Saepe
62 CHAPTER 4
served the common good. As Vergerio began to see more clearly the il-
lusion of absolute truth in areas such as law and politics, he intensified
his dream of reviving political culture according to the tenets of classical
rhetoric. That dream focused on the education of an individual entering
public service. How could one best prepare that limited group of tal-
ented individuals for the public responsibilities that their talents should
earn? In letters to Ludovico Buzzacarini from 1396, Vergerio began to
offer responses to that question. Those letters emphasized the impor-
tance for the political elite of the study of moral philosophy, history,
and rhetoric.^^
Vergerio 's restlessness also derived from vexing personal problems.
He continued to find poverty a source of embarassment for himself and
his family. In 1395, when his parents once again faced the prospect of
flight from Capodistria, he resented his own dependence on the patron-
age of others.^^ Those personal problems were compounded by the de-
teriorating political situation in northern Italy. The storm clouds of re-
newed war gathered ominously. In October of 1394, the patriarch of
Aquileia, Jan Sobieslav of Moravia, was brutally assassinated. In analyz-
ing that bloody turn of events in an area for which Vergerio felt great
fondness, he argued that liberty had been extended too widely among
those not used to its exercise. As factional rivalries exploded, liberty
tragically lacked all restraint. It would be very difficult to resolve the
problem because the various regional powers (the rival communes of
Cividale and Udine in Friuli, Venice, Padua, the German king) all lob-
bied on behalf of specific candidates. Such interest in affecting the choice
of patriarch derived from the longstanding prestige of the see and its
vital importance to contemporary politics as a buffer between Venice
and the empire. Vergerio interpreted the pope's appointment of Antonio
Caetani in January of 1395 as an effort to find a compromise candidate
acceptable to the various internal factions and outside powers. He was
not optimistic about the efficacy of the selection: the pope's effort to
please all would probably satisfy no one.'^''
enim et / Veritas mendacii et turpitude honestatis faciem induit; itaque nil minim si diversi
de eadem re summi viri adversa iudicia dent, cum et unus atque idem saepe diversis tempori-
bus sententiam existimationemque mutet."
^5 Ibid., 172-73, 176-79.
^^ Ibid., 129-30, 142, esp. 142: "Senes, aegri, inopes laborant, nee est eis ulla neque in se
neque in aliis spes; utque nihil ad summam desit, cogitur nunc pater sponsionem, quam pro
alio subierat, ipse re implere et pecuniam quidem adeo gravem exolvere, ut sit ei aut career
subeundus aut fuga paranda."
'" Ibid., 94-95, 98, 101, 110-12, esp. 101: "Vides gentem illam in summa libertate natam
Petrarch's Legacy 63
The upheaval in the patriarchate coincided with a renewed offensive
by Giangaleazzo Visconti against Francesco Novello in Padua. The
Paduan despot's provocative refusal to pay the tribute owed to Gianga-
leazzo alarmed his Florentine allies, who preferred a more cautious
policy. More importantly, it antagonized his Venetian allies, who mo-
mentarily abandoned the anti-Visconti League and offered financial sup-
port and troops to Giangaleazzo. In the first months of 1395, the Vis-
conti ruler threatened to invade Paduan territory. Vergerio actually got
hold of a letter from Giangaleazzo to Padua's despot, and he copied the
text and sent it to select friends in order to keep them abreast of devel-
opments.^* The threat of war lessened toward the end of 1395, when
the parties turned their attention to problems that had flared up in the
Romagna.^^ Vergerio felt even greater discouragement when the plague
returned during the summer of 1395. The disease had struck Istria with
special ferocity, and Vergerio agonized over the danger to his parents,
relatives, and closest friends. He urged Giovanni da Bologna, a doctor
and intimate acquaintance, to abandon Muggia as soon as the govern-
ment would permit him to do so. Vergerio assured Giovanni that he
stood ready to leave Padua at the first sign of plague.^°
Yet where would he go? His good friend, Santo de' Pellegrini, had
solutissimis legibus vivere: quae res esse damno solet iis, qui uti nesciant libertate. Sentis gra-
vibus inter se odiis non modo privates aut principes viros, sed et populos laborare, tarn qui-
dem ex praesentibus causis quam damnis retro latis, ac ne minus quidem ex ea quae omnium
malorum mater est, invidia. Accedit ad haec summa rerum omnium copia, quae laxivire
animos faciat nee sinat suae ipsos salutis meminisse, et assuetudo quaedam iam factor bel-
lorum. Cumque dudum pacatissima regio esse solebat, nuper et extemis et intemis bellis ex-
ercitata est." See further Pio Paschini, "L'Istria patriarcale durante il govemo del patriarca
Antonio Caetani (1395-1402)," Atti e memorie delta Societa istriana di archeologia e storia-
patna 42 (1930): 95-99; Paschini, y4wtorjjo Caetani Cardinale Aquileiese (Rome, 1931), 8-22;
and Paolo Stacul, // cardinale Pileo da Prata, Miscellanea 19 (Rome: Societa romana di storia
patria, 1957), 239-43.
^ Epist., 117, 119; and Ganguzza Billanovich, "Carrara, Francesco da, il Novello," DBI
20:658.
^ Epist, 152, 164-65. Astorre Manfredi had imprisoned Azzo d'Este after the latter's
aborted coup against Niccolo HI d'Este in Ferrara. Because Manfredi refused to hand his
prisoner over, war seemed imminent.
^ Epist, 141-42, 154-57, 162-63. In a letter from March of 1396, Vergerio assured Aldo-
vrandino da Ferrara that he would assist Aldovrandino in attaining vines from the hills
above Padua that could be transplanted to his land near Ferrara. However, Vergerio recom-
mended against such a transplanting, arguing that plants and human beings changed their na-
ture upon moving from the climate and surroundings of their origins ("In quo nihil est
quod miremur, cum videamus non modo plantas et sata, quae terrae coherent, sed et ani-
malia quoque et homines loci mutatione variari et in aliam paene naturam converti" [ibid.,
167]).
64 CHAPTER 4
worked for Jan Sobieslav, the assassinated patriarch of Aquileia. In 1395,
Vergerio dedicated his efforts to assuring that Antonio Caetani, the new
patriarch, retain Santo as his vicar of spiritual affairs. Vergerio personal-
ly visited Caetani in Venice, carrying with him letters of recommenda-
tion for Santo from Francesco Zabarella and Giovanni Ludovico Lam-
bertazzi. A few months after Caetani acceded to the request, in May of
1396, Santo drowned while crossing the Stella River. Vergerio grieved
for a close friend, whose companionship he had cherished through the
years; it had all ended too abruptly.^^ In the same years, Vergerio tried
to exploit his connections at Venice. When Desiderato Lucio was ap-
pointed chancellor, Vergerio quickly wrote in January of 1395 to congrat-
ulate him.^^ The letter had a dual purpose: it commended a bourgeois
republic like Venice that affords a political role to deserving intellectu-
als, and it suggested that humanists like himself were deserving intel-
lectuals. Vergerio contrasted the use that some princes made of their
chancellors with that made by republics. The unnamed princes treated
their chancellors as figureheads because they preferred to define policy
without regard for sound reasoning. The depiction seems an ill-conceal-
ed criticism of Francesco Novello for his treatment of Vergerio's men-
tor, Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna. Republics, on the other hand,
gave their chancellors much wider responsibilities. In effect, Vergerio
suggested that republican chancellors functioned as the conscience of the
government; he thus rendered homage to Salutati's role at Florence.
The letter also contained a skeletal description of Vergerio's under-
standing of Venetian political society, which was composed of a Senate,
^' Epist, 119-26, 182-83. Vergerio had also met two Florentine priests in Caetani's
retinue; see Paschini, Antonio Caetani, 22.
'^ Epist., 102-6. Vergerio corresponded with many influential persons in Venice. There
are letters to doctors (Giovanni da Bologna, Aldovrandino da Ferrara, Guglielmo da Raven-
na, Niccolo Cessi, Niccolo Leonardi), to Venetians in the chancery (Donato Compostella
and Desiderato Lucio, who was chancellor from 1395-96), and to patricians engaged in civic
affairs (Remigio Soranzo, Pietro Miani, Zaccaria Trevisan, Carlo Zeno, Fantino Dandolo).
Vergerio visited Venice in 1395 to meet with Antonio Caetani (123, 127-31) and again
around Christmastime (161 n. 1, 163). Later in Rome, he worked for the Venetian pope,
Gregory XII. Such contacts, together with a flurry of constitutional activity in Venice late
in the Trecento, may explain the possible sources for Vergerio's technical information on
Venice's constitution. For the Venetian contacts, see Percy Gothein, "Zaccaria Trevisan,"
Archivio veneto, ser. 5, 21 (1937): 2, 17; and Lino Lazzarini, "II patriziato veneziano e la cul-
tura umanistica dell'ultimo Trecento," ^Irc^xwo veneto, ser. 5, 115 (1980): 197-99, 209-13,
215-17. For comments on Vergerio's sources, see David Robey and John Law, "The Vene-
tian Myth and the De republica veneta of Pier Paolo Vergerio," Rinascimento, n.s., 15 (1975):
22-26.
Petrarch's Legacy 65
a doge, and the body of citizens united in their obedience to the gover-
nors of the republic. Vergerio figured among the first intellectuals to
suggest the success of Venice's "mixed constitution."'^ Over the course
of the next seven years, he began to organize a treatise which would ex-
plain the genius of the Venetian regime. Internal evidence suggests that
portions of the work were written as late as 1402, and in its present state
it only consists of notes that Vergerio intended to redact one day into
final form.^ Even so, the treatise comprises a first geopolitical analysis
of the Venetian Republic. Vergerio began his study with a long section
on the location of the city, her topography, and the various advantages
and disadvantages that accrued to Venice as a result.'^ In a second, less
polished section, Vergerio intended to give a detailed description of the
government crafted by the Venetians.'^ He wished to illustrate the
functioning of Venice's mixed constitution through its various offices.
The geographical portion of the treatise is dominated by strategic
concerns, especially the skill of the Venetians in rendering their city safe
from external attack. Vergerio described the advantages of the site as he
saw them. Located in a lagoon off the mainland, the city could not be
reached by missiles launched from shore nor could a large fleet of ships
negotiate the narrow entrances and tides that gave access to the lagoon.
Even if enemies reached the city, they would find themselves hopelessly
entangled in the labyrinth of the city's canals. The shallow waters and
tidal action of the lagoon's waters rendered ships of deep draft useless.
The soft mud of the area excluded any overland attack. The Venetians
had assured that their marking posts could be hidden when necessary ,'''
•" Epist,, 105: "Hoc nimirum ita futurum ceru omnibus fides est, quod sapientissimus
sit senatus, prudentissimus sit dux eius, pacatissima plebs et ad summum obsequens patribus,
ac tu quoque is vir es qui consultor moderatorque iis accesseris." See further Quentin Skin-
ner, The Renaissance, vol. 1 of The Foundations of Modem Political Thought (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 139-42; and Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1981), 44.
^ See Robey and Law, "The Venetian Myth," 3-35; Franco Gaeta, "Storiografia,
coscienza nazionale e politica culturale nella Veneziadel Rinascimento," in Dalprimo Quat-
trocento al Concilio di Trento, vol. 3 of Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Pozza, 1980-81),
6-11; Gaeta, "L'idea di Venezia," in Dalprimo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento, vol. 3 of
Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Pozza, 1980-81), 570-72; Angelo Ventura, "Scrinori po-
litici e scritture di govemo," in Dal primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento, vol. 3 of
Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Pozza, 1980-81), 536-37; and Robey, "Aspeni," 14-15.
'* PPV, De repuhlica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 38-44, lines 1-170.
^ Ibid., 44-49, lines 171-334. For the development of Venice's constitution during the
thirteenth century, see Giuseppe Maranini, La costituzione di Venezia dalle origini alia serrata
delMaggior Constglio (Venice, 1927), 159-312.
'^ Denys Hay and John Law noted that the Venetians pulled up the posts during the
66 CHAPTER 4
and they had the foresight to build most of their bridges of wood, which
could easily be destroyed during an attack.
Those defensive measures had produced distinct advantages for
Venice in the course of her history. Because Venice had never experi-
enced barbarian invasions, her population and her economy had grown
steadily. Venetian wealth was primarily a function of her strong defen-
sive position. Moreover, the city had no surrounding countryside. While
admitting liabilities regarding alimentary resources, Vergerio also saw ad-
vantages since the countryside often bred internal rivalries. For example,
exiles from Venice could not use the area nearby to launch a rebellion
against the city. Without using the precise terminology, Vergerio inti-
mated the absence of problems associated with the feudal nobility. In-
stead he painted a map of Venetian commerce that covered the entire
Mediterranean and reached into the Atlantic as far as Britain. Vergerio
cited the key role played by the Arsenal, a state-run industry producing
a fleet of military and commercial vessels, which exploited opportunities
for worldwide trade.^^
Having artfully developed the advantages offered by location, the
Venetians likewise crafted worthy instruments of government. Vergerio
used the terminology of oligarchy to describe the regime, clearly admir-
ing its restrictive character. In the letter to Petrarch on behalf of Cicero,
he had used the same terminology to describe the new political realities
of Rome under Octavian. For Vergerio the populus did not represent the
total body of the citizens, but rather the politically active element. In
the Venetian regime, the populus corresponded to the Great Council.
One could not define the Venetian elite as a pure aristocracy of birth be-
cause members of the Great Council were enrolled by law. For Verge-
rio, the genius of the system lay in limiting political participation to the
worthy and then restricting it even more. Vergerio saw the true power
in Venice in the Venetian Senate, not in the Great Council.^' Vergerio
War of Chioggia; see their Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1380-1530, Longman History
of Italy (London and New York: Longman, 1989), 263.
38 ppv, De repuhlica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 43, lines 137-42: "Navale ingens,
quod Arsenale appellant, intra urbem est, undique muris conclusum, in quo longae naves et
fiunt novae, et factae servantur, et tempestate adversa quassatae aut vetustate consumptae re-
ficiuntur. In eo remi, ancorae, ceteraque impedimenta navalia, arma insuper et omnis generis
instrumenta bellica usque in stuporem sunt et parantur assidue."
'' Ibid., 44, lines 171-73: "et insuper his qui rogari consueverunt consilium centum ho-
minum, quod et ab illis appellationem habet; dicitur enim Consilium Rogatorum, residetque
in his et Maioris Consilii et totius urbis potestas." The Senate did not officially number one
hundred members until 1413, and true power in the regime actually resided in the executive
Petrarch's Legacy 67
described the ritual of the SposaHzio to illustrate the nature of the
regime. The doge and the members of the Great Council left on special
vessels to conduct the rite of union with the sea, while the general popu-
lace observed their actions.^ Venice had committed the matters requir-
ing greatest trust to her best citizens.
In reporting the apparatus of government, Vergerio saw structures
designed to repress dissension and others to spur patriotic sentiments/^
Much of the description focused upon the legal apparatus, detailing the
various courts and their respective jurisdictions, Vergerio claimed that
firmness {constantia) constituted the greatest public virtue, and the Vene-
tians possessed this virtue. They never mitigated a judicial sentence:
criminals condemned to death were executed and exiles were never al-
lowed to return. In the most sensitive matters, the Venetians created spe-
cial councils that worked efficiently to assure state security. The Chief
Ministers {Savii Grandt) replaced the Senate when matters dictated secret
or lengthy deliberations. Acting as an internal secret police, the Council
of Ten {Dieci) investigated the crimes of lese majesty and conspiracy,
and its judgments allowed no appeal. When describing the function of
the Cinque alia Pace, Vergerio emphasized their power to mete out rapid
justice by imposing fines for factional brawling. Apparently, he was
aware of the custom which granted that magistracy the power to exoner-
ate or impose a symbolic fine upon anyone who had killed an out-
law.«
councils above the Senate. However, Vergerio correctly attributed greater power to the Sen-
ate than to the Great Council. On the matter of Vergerio's mistakes, see the comments of
Robey in his introduction to the edition, 22.
*° PPV, De republica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 44, lines 163-68: "soletque quot annis
in Ascensione Domini, qui dies unus est eis omnium ex toto anno maxime Celebris, Dux
eorum cum optimatibus atque omni nobilitate navigio in id ipsum opus comparato, foras
portum aliquantisper evectus, in signum dominii, continuandaeque possessionis gratia,
anulum manu detractum in altum iacere." Vergerio also praised the torturous path that
eventually led one to become a procurator of San Marco and perhaps even the doge. That
path appropriately involved a long period of testing to assure that a candidate was endowed
with sufficient political prestige (auctoritas).
*' See, e.g., ibid., 41, lines 76-82, where Vergerio identified two foci within the urban
fabric. The Rialto functioned as the center of commercial activity. Venice generated her
wealth through the involvement of her patricians in urban trading. The Piazza San Marco
functioned as the stage for her political affairs. The Ducal Palace served as the city's citadel,
the center of governmental coercion. Given the patriciate's success in controlling the citizen-
ry, they could stroll through the piazza on holidays without fear of violent crime.
^^ On the Cinque alia Pace, see PPV, De republica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 45, lines
185-88; Gaetano Cozzi, "Authority and the Law in Renaissance Venice," in J. R. Hale, ed.,
Renaissance Venice (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1973), 294, 318-19; Gaeta, "Sto-
riografia," 8 n. 16; and Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime arul Sexuality in
68 CHAPTER 4
Other constitutional measures were designed to foster support for
the state rather than to punish criminal behavior. Chancery jobs were
open to the select group of "original citizens" who were not members
of the Great Council. The original citizens also had limited access to
participation in the religious confraternities. Vergerio noted that only a
fixed number might join any particular Scuola, however, lest it become
a source of revolutionary agitation. In Vergerio's estimation, the regime
wisely took care to eliminate potential sources of mass unrest: grain ad-
ministrators assured sufficient food supplies while other magistrates
guaranteed necessary services like collecting garbage and maintaining the
navigability of canals. The judges of the citizens' formal petitions were
appointed after a lengthy selection process and then given the widest lat-
itude in judgment. Vergerio also noted the demagogic action of the re-
gime in persecuting Jews for their usurious practices. Above all, the re-
gime sought to foster the principal pursuit of all Venetians— commercial
activity.
Vergerio mentioned several ways in which the regime worked to
protect the Venetian economy. By the end of the fourteenth century,
Vergerio observed, the government had limited access to investment in
the public debt to Venetian citizens or those with a special indult. Enor-
mous debts from the War of Chioggia (1378-1381) and the tax exemp-
tion granted to those who invested in the debt after the war had driven
Venice dangerously close to financial collapse. The government could
only afford to make the twenty annual interest payments without touch-
ing the principal of the loans. Venice's rulers therefore devised policies
to avoid falling into severe debt once again. "^^ Foreigners who wished to
trade in Venice had to work through a Venetian middleman. Private in-
vestors were forbidden to arm ships. They had to use the protection of-
fered by the state-sponsored fleets. The government had also created so-
pracconsoli [supraconsules) who handled the cases of debtors who had fled
the city. Vergerio saw the measure as a response to the inherent risks
that capitalist commerce posed to investors and merchants. Merchants
Renaissance Venice, Studies in the History of Sexuality 1 (New York and Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1985), 4-5, 43.
^^ PPV, De republica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 46, lines 230-37: "Multis etenim gra-
vibusque bellis, quae longis retro temporibus aut intulit, aut passa est civitas, paene innume-
rabile aes alienum contraxit. lussis civibus sing;ulo bello pro modo facultatum mutuum in
aerarium conferre, pro illis nunc annuas mercedes vicenas exsolvit manente sorte, eaque im-
pensa grandem complectitur summam, habenturque hi redditus immobilium loco. Itaque
non nisi civibus, aut si quibus privilegio indultum est, licet emere aut possidere."
Petrarch's Legacy 69
faced the unpredictable dangers of the sea, where storms and piracy
could quickly wipe out one's capital. Investors could easily hide liquid
resources and fraudulently claim that they could not repay their debts.
The Venetian magistrates had the right to condemn to permanent exile,
even in contumaciam those found guilty of fraud.^
Despite errors on specific details, Vergerio demonstrated genuine in-
sight into those factors that contributed to the stability of Venice's re-
publican regime.^^ Venetian political society assumed a more hierarchi-
cal and bureaucratic form after the War of Chioggia. The debts of that
war stretched Venetian public financing to the limits. Vergerio displayed
an especially keen eye when he directed his attention to the physical
character of the city. In fact, his proven interest in writing descriptions
of cities, as well as his desire to work for Venice's government, supply
the most plausible motives for his notes. Piazza San Marco and the Rial-
to comprised the two central topographical features, the Arsenal remain-
ed the mainstay of Venice's seaborn economy, and the Sposalizio her
most dramatic public ritual. Vergerio realized the problems caused by
the silt which periodically blocked the city's port outlets. Though the
Venetians had expended much money in search of a solution, they still
had not resolved the problem.'*^ Finally, Vergerio offered unsolicited
advice to the Venetian regime on the appropriate policy toward the Ital-
ian mainland. He claimed that the Venetians would be much wiser to
protect the empire already acquired along the shores of the Adriatic
rather than to expand into the Italian hinterland. Any attempt to ex-
pand on the terra firma would cause government expenses to grow well
beyond its revenues.^^
** Ibid., 49, lines 310-27.
^^ See Stanley Chojnacki, "Crime, Punishment and the Trecento Venetian State," in
Lauro Martines, ed.. Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities, 1200-1500, Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies: Contributions 5 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of Cal-
ifornia Press, 1972), 218-27; Robert Finlay, Politics m Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1980), 109-24; Muir, Civic Ritual, 119-34; Giorgio Bellavitis and
Giandomenico Romanelli, Venezia, Le citta nella storia d'ltalia (Bari: Laterza, 1985), 53-66;
Ruggiero, Boundaries of Eros, 86, 92, 127; and Dennis Romano, Patricians and "Popolani":
The Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance State (Baltimore and London: Johns Hop-
kins Univ. Press, 1987), 6-9, 141-58.
^ PPV, De republica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 21 and 42, lines 105-14. Robey judici-
ously comments on Vergerio's motives for writing the treatise, ibid., 31-32. In the course
of his career, Vergerio had begun to write descriptions of the cities of Capodistria, Rome,
and Florence.
*^ Ibid., 43, lines 143-46 and 44, lines 162-63 (regarding the maintenance of the present
empire). See also the letter to Lucio in 1395, Epist., 102-5. Despite discouraging a landed em-
70 CHAPTER 4
From the letter on behalf of Cicero to the treatise on Venice, Verge-
rio had consistently defended the model of oligarchic government. From
an ideological perspective, he had shown the pragmatism of an unem-
ployed intellectual, willing to work for a prince or a republic and eager
to show his appreciation for both systems. He saw his potential con-
tribution as a humanist in using praise or censure to foster a spirit of
common good among the political elite. Any degeneration toward fac-
tionalism or a demagogic politics designed to enhance the ambitions of
a tyrant must be opposed, even at the risk of one's life. Vergerio recog-
nized that ethos had provided Roman orators with a powerful weapon.
He hoped to wield it in order to foster a sense of merit within the
political elite. Once the elite had consolidated their hold on power, they
should assign political tasks on the basis of ability. Vergerio, however,
had still not succeeded in proving his own worth to potential employ-
ers. He had not obtained the patronage of the Carrara or a post in the
Venetian chancery. When war erupted in the spring of 1397, Vergerio at
last determined to leave Padua.
pire, Vergerio supplied unwitting justification for it, when he theorized that the word
Venetia derived from the Roman "Regio Venetiae," which had once extended as far as Ber-
gamo; see PPV, De republica veneta, Robey and Law, eds., 39, lines 18-21.
CHAPTER 5
The Power of the Visible
Anticipating a difficult confrontation with the army of Giangaleazzo
Visconti, his opponents had sought to strengthen their position. In
September of 1396, Florence enlisted the support of King Charles VI of
France. Subsequently, Francesco Novello sealed marriage alliances with
the rulers of other buffer states in northeastern Italy. His daughter Gigli-
ola da Carrara married Niccolo III d'Este of Ferrara in June of 1397.
One month later, Francesco's son, Francesco III, married Alda Gonzaga,
daughter of the marchese of Mantua. The weddings occurred as Gianga-
leazzo's troops advanced steadily against Francesco Gonzaga. After di-
verting the Mincio River from its normal course, Giangaleazzo 's army
captured Borgoforte on 15 July 1397. Under the command of Carlo
Malatesta from Rimini, the forces of the anti- Visconti coalition rallied to
stop that advance.
On 28 August 1397, those forces defeated the Visconti army at the
battle of Governolo sul Po, approximately eleven miles south of Man-
tua. Ultimate victory came only with Venetian assistance. By May of
1398, Venice engineered a truce with Milan, which assured the safety of
Padua, Ferrara, and Mantua. For the time being, those buffer states sepa-
rated Milan and Venice. However, Venice increasingly dictated their for-
eign policy.^ After the victory at Governolo, Carlo Malatesta led his
' Gatari, Cronaca carrarese, RIS, n.s., 16.1:439, 448, 453-55; Philip J. Jones, The MalatesU
of Rimini and the Papal State (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1974),
112-15; and M. Chiara Ganguzza Billanovich, "Carrara, Francesco da, il Novello," DBI
20:658. Governolo is a hamlet within the Commune of Roncoferraro and is located on the
Mincio River a little over a mile from the Mincio's confluence with the Po River.
71 CHAPTER 5
army to Mantua, where he received the accolades of the city he had
saved. In September of 1397, while residing in Bologna, Pierpaolo Ver-
gerio received terse word of a shocking action on the part of the alli-
ance's military commander, "After Carlo Malatesta had defeated the
enemy and driven them off in flight, in order that he might also enjoy
victory over the poets, to whom he is most hostile, he overturned the
statue, which had stood for many centuries as a memorial to Virgil."^
The episode involving Virgil's statue is a somewhat puzzling chapter
in the history of Italian humanism. Three letters preserve the reactions
of contemporary scholars to the act and its implications. Vergerio wrote
the first letter, which bears a date of 18 September 1397. He addressed
it to Ludovico degli Alidosi. Alidosi was papal vicar of the city of Imola
in the Romagna, in which capacity he functioned as de facto despot. In
Vergerio's mind, he was also a potential patron, "unique among princes
because he alone cherishes the erudite and particularly the orators and
poets. "^ The second letter is dated 25 October 1397 but offers no cer-
tain evidence of the identity of its author or recipient. Most manuscripts
preserve a text addressed to a "Personus," who is once called "Peregri-
nus." No individual has been found who fits the description, and the
use of Personus has led to sound suspicions that the letter may be an
exercise in composition. Though the letter has been attributed to
Leonardo Bruni or even to Vergerio, the best evidence militates against
both of those attributions.'* Six months later (23 April 1398), Coluccio
Salutati wrote to Pellegrino Zambeccari to give his reaction to news of
the destruction of the statue and to offer some personal advice to his
friend.^ The two men were chancellors of Florence and Bologna respec-
tively, and, as such, key actors in the anti-Visconti alliance. The delicate
character of the situation, in which the alliance's military commander
had issued a controversial order, may explain why Salutati cautiously de-
^ Epist., 195: "Karolus de Malatestis, victis fugatisque apud Mantuam hostibus, ut de
poetis qucxjue triumpharet, quibus est hostis infestissimus, statuam, quae in honorem Virgilii
multis retro saeculis steterat, evertit."
' Epist, 189-202. I am aware of forty-three manuscripts which contain the invective (£/>.
81 in Smith's edition). Full data are supplied in the finding-list of Vergerio's works forth-
coming in my edition of the Jerome panegyrics for MRTS.
^ David Robey, "Virgil's Statue at Mantua and the Defence of Poetry: An Unpublished
Letter of 1397," Rinascimento, n.s., 9 (1969): 183-89.
^ Coluccio Salutati, Epistolario, Francesco Novati, ed. (Rome, 1891-1911), 3:285-308.
Ronald Witt supplies an English translation in Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, The
Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society (Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1978), 94-114.
The Power of the Visible 73
layed taking a public stance. Most scholars today do not question the
historicity of the episode.^
Vergerio reacted well before the other intellectuals, and his invective
became one of the most popular letters that he ever wrote. It served as
a manifesto for his maturing convictions about the value of humanist
studies. As such, it has a distinctly original message. Unlike the other
two authors, Vergerio did not defend poetry alone. Rather, right from
the opening lines of his invective, he defended the value of poetry and
oratory? That is, Vergerio offered a comprehensive defense of humanist
studies after a renowned political figure had shown contempt for those
studies. Among active humanists, only Vergerio conceived of the prob-
lem in terms of rhetorical culture.
In form and in content, the letter reveals the development of Verge-
rio's approach to humanist studies. He composed the letter as a prosecu-
torial speech, bringing Carlo Malatesta before the tribunal of learned
opinion. In a letter one year earlier, Vergerio had lamented the absence
of oratory in the contemporary judicial process. Legal procedures were
dominated by affidavits taken by notaries to which were appended lists
of relevant statutes. The study and practice of law lacked a proper basis
in rhetoric. Vergerio subordinated the technical aspects of the trial to
the composition of an oration.^ Lawyers in antiquity had received train-
' Georg Voigt challenged the historicity of the incident in Die Wiederbelebung des clas-
sischen Alterthums, oder das erste Jahrhundert des Humanismus, 3d ed. prepared by Max
Lehnerdt (Berlin, 1893), 1:572-75. Historians who accept the historicity of the episode in-
clude Francesco Novati, Epistolario di Salutati, 3:285-87 n. 1; Vladimiro Zabughin, Virgilio
nel Rinascimento italiano da Dante a Torquato Tasso: Fortuna, studi, imitazioni, traduzioni e
parodie, iconografia (Bologna, 1921-23), 1:112-13; Leonardo Smith, EpisL, 189-90 n. 1;
Berthold Louis Ullman, The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati, Medioevo e umanesimo 4
(Padua: Antenore, 1963), 55-58; Jones, Malatesta of Rimini, 128-29; and Robey, "Virgil's
Statue," 183. The most recent discussion of the episode emphasizes the defense of poetry;
see Alan Fisher, "Three Meditations on the Destruction of Vergil's Statue: The Early Hu-
manist Theory of Poetry," Renaissance Quarterly 40 (1987): 607-35.
' EpisL, 189 ("cum omnis generis erudites turn maxime oratores et poetas colis"), 193
("at vero indixisse bellum vatibus, oratoribus maledicere, damnare scriptores"), 197-98
("haec est de poetis et de oratoribus sententia. Non est mihi animus nunc mon-/strare, quae
sit poeticae vis aut oratoriae facultas"), and 202 ("poetas oratoresque, si non dicit honore
dignos, at saltem non insectetur infamia"). As early as 1395, Vergerio used the expression
orator etpoeta to describe a humanist {Epist, 143). The terminology was common until the
word humanista was coined later in the Quattrocento. See Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance
Thought and Its Sources, Michael Mooney, ed. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1979), 97-
98, 242-43, 251; and John M. McManamon, Funeral Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of
Italian Humanism (Chapel Hill, N.C., and London: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1989),
135-36. Nicholas Mann and George Holmes kindly reminded me of Petrarch's affirmation
that "orators and poets are not to be found outside of Italy" {Sen. 9.1).
' EpisL, 179: "Sed hie mos apud nostros plane iam in desuetudinem concessit quando
74 CHAPTER 5
ing in stasis theory, through which the various issues that might be con-
tested in any trial were grouped under general headings of deed, motive,
and jurisdiction of the court. Vergerio therefore divided his letter into
treatment of the deed {de facto) and the motive behind it {de causa). He
attempted to establish that Carlo Malatesta had ordered the statue
knocked from its pedestal and that he had acted out of false piety.' In
form, the letter displays the originality of Vergerio's humanism. He
knew the rhetorical techniques of antiquity, and he found ways to em-
ploy them in an oratorical context. The content of the letter is as origi-
nal as the form. Not satisfied with a simple defense of poetry, Vergerio
argued for the value of the entire humanist enterprise. He applauded an-
cient authors who had conserved the great deeds of their era in written
records: those writings comprised a collective memory of antiquity. Ver-
gerio proceeded to list the names of Greek and Roman heroes, whom he
knew thanks to the work of ancient poets and historians. Consistent
with his political ideals, Vergerio closed the list with the champions of
the Roman Republic. ^°
Nowhere is Vergerio's comprehensive purpose more evident than in
his combined defense of Cicero together with Virgil. ^^ Vergerio first
mentioned Cicero when he speculated that Malatesta may have taken in-
direct inspiration from the emperor Augustus. While Augustus had
hated Cicero when the orator was still alive, Malatesta had erupted in
hatred for Virgil well after the poet's death. It was fortunate for Cicero
that none of the statues erected to honor him in ancient times were
standing late in the fourteenth century. Further into the letter, Vergerio
quoted the condottiere as contemptuously remarking that Virgil was
nothing more than a stage actor {histrio) and Cicero a shyster (causidicus)
and jester {nugator). Vergerio turned the charges against Cicero against
Malatesta himself. He argued that Cicero could fairly be characterized as
a lawyer and a humorist, without the pejorative connotations of Mala-
testa's terminology. With proven integrity, Cicero had prosecuted or
defended a number of important citizens. In his spare time he had
causas agitent, a quibus alienissima est orandi facultas. Conscriptis namque tabellis, et con-
quisitis, ut quisque potuit, legibus, non orationibus, controversiae in foro diiudicantur."
' Ibid., 196. On stasis theory in antiquity, see George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and
Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modem Times (Chapel Hill, N.C.:
Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1980), 88, 92-95.
'° Epist., 192-93.
" Ibid., 194-95, 198-99.
The Power of the Visible 75
collected a volume of humorous anecdotes. Vergerio placed those
specific activities within the context of Cicero's fundamental commit-
ments. The Roman orator had distinguished himself as a moral philoso-
pher and as a civic activist. Neither of the other two letters alluded to
Malatesta's condemning Cicero as well as Virgil. By defending Cicero,
Vergerio gave expression to some of his deepest convictions. In wres-
tling with the legacy of Petrarch, Vergerio had realized that he could
never be satisfied with a purely poetic style of humanism. He wished to
recover the political dimension of the rhetorical culture of antiquity,
defined by the activities of the orator. For Vergerio, humanists could be
orators and poets, but they had to be orators.
Vergerio 's letter reflects in a second way the peculiar evolution of his
commitment to humanist studies. It restates his belief in the power of
images to persuade human beings. Among the three authors who re-
sponded to Malatesta's action, only Vergerio emphasized the importance
of the statue as a visible memorial. During his years in Padua, Vergerio
had already manifested a sense of the political message that buildings and
rituals in a city might convey. He envisioned the layout of a city as
though it were the outline of an oration: it needed embellishment. Virgil
made Mantua famous and not vice versa. The city had appropriately
erected his statue to remind citizens of their illustrious ancestor and to
spur them to great accomplishments. ^^
In discussing the importance of monuments, Vergerio ridiculed the pur-
portedly pious motives which had inspired Carlo Malatesta to tear down
the statue. Malatesta claimed that it was right to erect statues to the saints
but not to pagan poets. Vergerio conceded the suitability of monuments to
the saints, provided that by saints one meant individuals of proven ethos
{meritum vitae virtutumque doctrina). Vergerio reminded his readers that
images of illustrious- men had motivated ancient heroes like Scipio to per-
form great deeds. He categorically rejected the proposition that poets, espe-
cially the pagan poets, did not deserve such monuments. Illustrious poets
and gifted visual artists like the sculptor Phidias deserved such memorializa-
tion.^^ To eliminate the pagans a priori seemed to Vergerio a further mani-
'^ Ibid., 195-96; and Fisher, "Three Meditations," 623-27. See further Michael Baxan-
dall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pic-
torial Style (2d ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), 18-20, 40-41, 55-58,
64-66, 103; and Margaret L. King, The Death of the Child Valerio Marcello (Chicago and Lon-
don: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994), 13-14.
'^ Epist., 196: "Non sum qui negem et statuas et honorem Sanctis deberi, qui merito
vitae virtutumque doctrina sunt digni ut celebrentur in terris et in caelis beatam sempiter-
76 CHAPTER 5
festation of the religious bigotry that had erupted in the last years of the
fourteenth century. Bands of fanatical Christians had damaged frescoes
because they depicted Jews and Roman soldiers participating in the events
that ended in the crucifixion of Jesus.
Malatesta's reactionary zealotry threatened to unleash a wave of icon-
oclasm against the monuments of pagan antiquity and a priceless portion
of the cultural patrimony of Christianity. "Therefore, representations of
Pharaoh and Pilate and Herod, and likewise those of evil demons which
possess a measure of dreadfulness proportionate to the intention of their
painters, will have to be removed from churches and ripped off their
walls. Consequently, the city of Rome, where there are so many monu-
ments from antiquity and from primitive Christianity, will experience
great destruction. "^"^ Vergerio juxtaposed the intolerant bigotry of Mala-
testa the Catholic to the tolerant eclecticism of Cicero the pagan. He
hammered home his point by sarcastically observing that one could jus-
tify such conduct if perhaps one found that a life bent on tearing down
helped to build up human society. Vergerio preferred a committed life
of faith, which sought to build by living virtuously.
namque vitam agant; poetis vero hisque illustribus non video cur constltui non possint. Si
enim munus tale in eorum memoriam fieri solet, qui illustres et in vita praestantes fuerint,
quid vetat ne vatibus quoque, si qui praeter ceteros insignes sint, talium rerum monumenta
debeantur? Nam et posteris, cum haec vident, magna sunt incitamenta animorum, ingeniis-
que ad virtutem et vitae gloriam ingens calcar ex his additur; quale solebat dicere Scipio,
cum illustrium virorum imagines cerneret, magnopere se ad eorum imitationem concitari.
Cumque hoc poetis suo quasi iure concedam, non interdico tamen ceteris, qui aliquo recto
studio aut egregio artificio insignes fuerunt; neque enim, ut alios sileam, redarguendus is
mihi videtur, qui, cum Palladem finxisset, in eius se aegide medium sculpsit." Vergerio drew
the reference to Scipio from Sallust lug. 4.5. Phidias sculpted his portrait on the Athena Par-
thenos (see Smith, Epist, 196 n. 3, who cites Cicero Tusc. 1.15.34 and Valerius Maximus Fact,
etdict. mem. 8.14.ext.6). See also David Robey, "Aspetti dell'umanesimovergeriano," in Vit-
tore Branca and Sante Graciotti, eds., L'umanesimo in Istria, Civilta veneziana: Studi 38
(Florence: Olschki, 1983), 13-14.
'^ Epist., 197: "Illud vero praeterire non possum, quod Virgilius, quia gentilis fuerit, in-
dignus sit statua; simileque hoc mihi videtur eorum rationi, qui, cum in templis ludaeorum
gentiliumque imagines vident Christum aut verberantium aut crucifigentium, oculos illis, ut
quaeque iratior videtur, eruunt, truculentasque lictorum facies ex multa religione pietateque
deformant, quasi quidem in delendis imaginibus ac non magis in tollendis peccatis compo-
nendisque virtutibus meritum vitae consistat. lam ergo et Pharaonis imagines et Pilati atque
Herodis, itemque malorum demonum, quas tam horribiles quam pictoribus placet cernimus,
templis avellendae parietibusque delendae erunt; Roma magnam ruinam sentiat oportet, in
qua sunt tot vetustatis, tot priscae religionis monumenta." Cf. Michael Baxandall, Giotto and
the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composi-
tion 1350-1450, Oxford- Warburg Studies 6 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 41-43; and Samuel
Y. Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment: Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine
Renaissance (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1985), 91-92.
The Power of the Visible 77^
Vergerio cited examples from antiquity to show the importance of
images and the use made of them by civic rulers. When a society wished
to dramatize its censure of an individual's immoral behavior, it might
properly resort to the destruction of images. The Romans had justly
shattered statues of Domitian and deleted his name from inscriptions be-
cause the man had proven himself a savage beast. Likewise, Vergerio's
contemporaries tried to wipe away any visible trace of the existence of
executed criminals. However, Carlo Malatesta could not justify such
censure in the case of Virgil, for Virgil had lived a moral life.^^ Verge-
rio also warned Malatesta of the potentially self-defeating character of
his deed. He reminded the condottiere of the anonymous ancient ruler
who had sought to become famous by destroying the temple of Diana
at Ephesus. No better testimony existed for that ruler's stupidity than
the fact that no one remembered his name but all remembered his in-
famous deed,^^
Carlo Malatesta's quest for fame had led him to attack the group of
scholars who might make him famous.
It is one thing to have ignored writers, given that many [princes]
are endowed with a lofty spirit, and thus disdain praises and
fame, satisfying themselves with the consciousness of great ac-
complishments. It is altogether another thing to have declared
war on the poets, to censure the orators, to condemn the writers.
If someone from the common crowd were of this opinion, I
would endure it; however, in a prince trained in the good arts, to
whom glory and virtue are of value, I cannot approve those
things.^^
Vergerio meant to teach Ludovico degli Alidosi the proper conduct for
a prince by censuring the conduct of Malatesta. He hoped that Ludovico
would show his appreciation for the orators and poets through generous
patronage.
Vergerio's defense of Virgil and his poetry are more traditional. He
'* Epist, 193-94.
'* Ibid., 191-92.
'^ Ibid., 193: "Et est fortasse aliquid neglexisse scriptores, ut sunt plerique tam magno
elatoque animo praediti, qui laudes famamque con[con]temnant, bene gestarum rerum con-
scientia sola contenti; at vero indixisse bellum valibus, oratoribus maledicere, damnare scri-
ptores, si quis ex vulgo haec ita sentiret, paterer quidem, quasi illi cum laude et litteris nihil
commune sit; in principe vero bonis artibus imbuto, cui sit gloria et virtus in pretio, non
possum isu probare."
78 CHAPTER 5
rejected the charge made by Carlo Malatesta that poets were nothing
more than actors. Vergerio found the claim rather ironic from a prince
who maintained a troupe of entertainers at his court. Carlo wasted his
money in supporting clowns. Other princes, ancient and modern, had
had the good sense to patronize poets. Vergerio assembled a list of the
enlightened modern princes who had supported Petrarch during his
career and included among them Carlo's relative, Pandolfo Malatesta.
Vergerio further rejected any effort by Carlo to justify his action by ap-
peal to the teaching of Plato. Plato's ban on poets had extended only to
those comic poets who produced obscene works. He did not have in
mind the heroic poets who celebrated virtue and censured vice.^*
The other two authors restricted their defense to Carlo's charges
against the poets. The anonymous letter on the episode first dealt with
Carlo's characterization of the poets as actors. That charge was not true
by definition: according to Boccaccio, the source for much of the
author's argument, poets are divinely inspired. Lest there be further
doubt, one need only note the difference in terms of what the poets pro-
duce {effectus) and in terms of their lives. Unlike actors, poets supply
moral examples and stimulate creative thinking by hiding truth beneath
a veil of poetic imagery. Poets like Petrarch lived an upstanding life.
Malatesta had no right to ban them from the commonwealth, though
many poets freely chose a life of solitude far from the distractions of the
city.^' The anonymous author also dealt with the claim that the poets
lied. He attributed that position to Malatesta as well and used his de-
fense to attack the literalism of interpreters, who treated myths as
though they were historical accounts. Liars seek to deceive; poets seek
to encourage the search for a hidden truth. The Apocalypse of Saint
John recounted occurrences that were incredible in order to teach a
deeper theological truth.^°
Salutati's letter differs from the other two in its subtlety and its
broader concerns, which go beyond the affair of the statue. Because Salu-
tati claimed to know of the statue's destruction only from Pellegrino
Zambeccari's report, he discussed whether the news seemed credible. Sa-
lutati also took up the matter of a romantic relationship from which
Zambeccari sought to extricate himself. Ingeniously, the Florentine
'« Ibid., 199-202.
" Robey, "Virgil's Statue," 192-99.
^ Ibid., 199-202.
The Power of the Visible 79
chancellor managed to weave the two disparate threads together. In dis-
cussing the destruction of the statue, he framed his remarks with the ob-
servation that he could not believe that Carlo Malatesta was capable of
such an act. For Salutati, it was unthinkable that a prince so devoted to
the study of divine letters would destroy a statue of Virgil. ^^ In much
the same fashion as Vergerio, Salutati wished to undermine any religious
justification for the deed. A believer who appreciated the message of
Scripture would not destroy a statue of Virgil.
If Malatesta argued that poets are really actors, Salutati wondered on
what basis he could make such a comparison. It could certainly not be
in terms of gestures, of which the poets made no use. Perhaps it had to
do with the strong element of praise in both of their activities. Salutati
claimed, however, that praise did not distort the truth. If it was accorded
to deserving individuals, then it proved to be useful in rewarding moral
behavior. If it was exaggerated beyond an individual's genuine worth,
then one should recognize the hyperbole as a call to reform. Undue
praise put the subject in a negative light and thereby constituted subtle
criticism. Salutati had opened his missive with effusive praise for Carlo
Malatesta and now provided the prince with a hermeneutical key. Fi-
nally, no one could doubt the value of poetry, especially for a believer.
The greatest Christian authors had cited poetic works, and a Christian
classic such as Augustine's City of God was incomprehensible without a
knowledge of ancient poetry.
Like the anonymous author, Salutati also dealt with the charge that
poets lie. As the anonymous author had done, Salutati pointed to the
symbolic material in Scripture to defend the use of symbolism in poetry.
Metaphoric verse challenged the reader to dig out truths buried in fic-
tions.^ In the second half of his letter, Salutati made recommendations
regarding the personal problems which Pellegrino had shared with him.
First of all, Zambeccari had anxieties about an affair he was carrying on
with a woman named Giovanna. Secondly, the Bolognese chancellor had
revealed his desire to leave public life for a life of contemplation in an
oratory which he had recently endowed. Zambeccari apparently con-
ceived the flight to a hermitage as a way to end his affair with Giovan-
na.^^ Salutati tried to strengthen his friend's resolve to break off the
^' Colucclo Salutati, Epistolano, Novati, ed., 3:285-91, 293-95.
^ Ibid., 3:291-93.
" Ibid., 3:295-308.
80 CHAPTER 5
affair. In presenting his case, Salutati quoted Virgil six different times, re-
emphasizing by example the moral tenor of Virgil's poetry. As for the
proposed turn to a contemplative life, Salutati challenged Pellegrino's
basic reasoning. The contemplative life admittedly brought one closer to
God, but one could carry on an active life of service to the Bolognese
commonwealth and thereby serve God. The public square should be Pel-
legrino's hermitage; he would please God by ending his affair and con-
tinuing as chancellor.
All three authors, then, rejected Carlo Malatesta's effort to denigrate
poets by equating them with actors. Vergerio and Salutati used their let-
ters to defend the appropriate contribution that humanists made to soci-
ety. Vergerio alone, however, added a defense of Cicero and oratory,
and he emphasized the inspirational power of a monument erected to
honor a person of integrity. For him and for many intellectuals of the
Renaissance, sight comprised the most powerful of human senses.^^
Heavenly reward, in fact, consisted of a blessed type of vision. More-
over, Vergerio conceived of the mind as having eyes which a humanist
should use to the fullest. "What is more appropriate for a man involved
in political activity than to see and commit to memory and review the
affairs of a past era?"^^ The most convincing truth was a truth that one
lived, and the best oratory engendered sights of ethical behavior.
Vergerio 's letter on the statue of Virgil suggests a new way to inter-
pret a famous bit of advice which he gave to Ludovico Buzzacarini in
1396. Vergerio recommended that Buzzacarini take Cicero as his sole
model for persuasive oratory, and, in so doing, he used a comparison to
painters of his day. "Although they diligently observe quality paintings
executed by others, nevertheless they follow the models of Giotto
alone." Modern commentators such as Michael Baxandall have puzzled
over that comment .^^ Apprentice painters would normally take their
^^ See, for example, Vergerio's comments to Salutati in a letter of 1391 {Epist, 62): "Si
postremo et id umquam fortuna concederet, quod apud te viverem, cuius monitis et exem-
plo vitae, cernentibus oculis, cottidie memet maior meliorque fierem! Sentio plane quantum
in virtute profecerim, te auctore, per id pauculum temporis quo et videre et audire te licuit,
cum ad praecepta tua velut ad abundantissimum fontem sitibundus venirem." Cf. ibid., 15,
82, 88-89, 138; and Eugenio Garin, "Ritratto di Leonardo Bruni Aretino," Atti e memorie
della Accademia Petrarca di lettere, arti e scienze, n.s., 40 (1970-72): 2-3, who discusses
Bruni's decision to pursue humanist studies after seeing a portrait of Petrarch.
^^ Epist., 172: "Quid enim magis ad consilia vitae rationesque attinet quam praeteriti
temporis et gestarum rerum notitia? Aut quid communi viro magis convenit quam longaevae
res aetatis et cernere et memorare et recensere iucunde?"
^* Epist., 177-78; and Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, 43-44. For the Ciceronian con-
The Power of the Visible 81
master as the standard for excellence. Insofar as Vergerio knew the
world of Paduan painters, he may have felt that, in questions of style,
they esteemed Giotto more than their own master. Or, perhaps influ-
enced by his Florentine connections, Vergerio turned to Giotto when he
needed the name of a renowned painter.
How does the letter on the statue affect our understanding of Verge-
rio 's counsel? One must first remember that Vergerio offered his advice
in a letter on the principles of rhetorical education useful for one seek-
ing a career in public service. In effect he suggested that humanists must
fully appropriate classical standards for oratory if they were to have a
radical impact upon the world of politics. Giotto had broken with the
conventions of painting in his day and created a new style based upon
his understanding of classical norms. Though popular in Padua, Giotto
nonetheless remained a controversial figure. He represented the avant
garde. By establishing Cicero as the sole model for oratory, Vergerio
proposed a radical new approach to education and politics in his day.
He sought to reestablish the orator at the center of public life. Verge-
rio's affirmation represents the first salvo in the Ciceronian controver-
sies of the Renaissance. The full significance of that affirmation emerges
only in its historical context. Vergerio was not engaging in a debate
about style alone but tracing a position on the social role of a humanist
intellectual. He proposed to make Cicero the sole norm for public
speechmaking at a moment when no fashionable speaker followed Cice-
ronian norms. Like the artists of the Trecento, humanists should revolu-
tionize the style and substance of their medium. Through public speech-
es, they must work to create vivid images of virtue. Vergerio urged
humanists to help their world see clearly once again.
The revolutionary endeavors of the humanists of Vergerio 's genera-
tion appealed to the visual sense. Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolo Niccoli
transformed the handwriting and book production of the day. In their
view, Gothic script was too difficult to read. They sought to create "a
clearer and more legible hand" and adopted strict standards according to
what they assumed were exemplars of the handwriting of classical times.
At the same time they changed the entire appearance of the book. The
troversies, see Remigio Sabbadini, Storia del ciceronianismo e di altre questioni letterarie
nell'eta delta rinascenza (Turin, 1885), 5-18; and John F. D'Amico, Renaissance Humanism
in Papal Rome: Humanists and Churchmen on the Eve of the Reformation, Studies in Histori-
cal and Political Science, ser. 101, no. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1983), 123-
43.
82 CHAPTER 5
script, the materials on which they wrote, the way in which they ruled
and laid out the page, and the decoration that they added all contributed
to a product that in their estimation was more pleasing and more use-
ful. ^^ Thus, the changes proposed by humanists were dictated by philo-
logical and by graphic needs, and they were based upon rigid "classical"
norms. In the area of rhetoric, Vergerio imagined himself as an artist
who worked through the medium of words to create vivid images of
virtue,
Vergerio deepened his conviction about the power of the visible
when he visited the city of Rome early in 1398. He accompanied Fran-
cesco Zabarella, whom Francesco Novello had sent as an ambassador to
discuss matters of mutual concern with Pope Boniface IX (1389-1404).
In all likelihood, Zabarella went to dissuade the pope from following the
recommendations of the emperor Wenceslaus for ending the Great
Western Schism. Wenceslaus had drafted a plan which called for the
popes in Rome and Avignon to resign. The emperor had already enlist-
ed the support of King Charles VI of France. Francesco Novello and his
allies in the anti-Visconti coalition mistrusted Wenceslaus because he had
sold the title of duke to Giangaleazzo Visconti in 1395. Paduan diploma-
cy worked to have the pope depose Wenceslaus in favor of his rival, Ru-
pert of the Palatinate. While in Rome, Zabarella delivered an oration
which argued for the absolute authority of the pope, to whom even the
emperor was subject. Vergerio felt that Zabarella was held in high es-
teem in Rome and would soon receive an ecclesiastical promotion.^*
The visit was marked by a progression of discouraging events. Even
before reaching the city, Vergerio had a foretaste of things to come.
^' See E. H. Gombrich, "From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts: Nic-
colo Niccoli and Filippo Brunelleschi," The Heritage ofApelles: Studies in the Art of the Ren-
aissance (Oxford: Phaidon, 1976), 72-7&; Albinia de la Mare, The Handwriting of Italian Hu-
manists (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), 1:49-50, 52-53; de la Mare, "Humanistic Script:
The First Ten Years," in Fritz Krafft and Dieter Wuttke, eds.. Das Verhaltnis der Human-
isten zum Buch, Kommission fiir Humanismusforschung, Mitteilung 4 (Boppard: H. Boldt,
1977), 89-93; and esp. de la Mare, "New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence," in
Annarosa Garzelli, Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento 1440-1525: Un primo censimento,
Inventari e cataloghi toscani 18 (Scandicci [Florence]: La Nuova Italia, 1985), 1:396.
^* Epist., 208: "maiorumque sibi spem effecit." On the embassy, see Smith, ibid., 206-7
n. 1; Terenzio Sartore, "Un discorso inedito di Francesco Zabarella a Bonifacio DC sull'auto-
rita del papa," Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 20 (1966): 375-88; and Gregorio Piaia,
"La fondazione filosofica della teoria conciliare in Francesco Zabarella," in Antonino Poppi,
ed., Scienza e filosofia all'Universita di Padova nel Quattrocento, Contributi alia storia
dell'Universita di Padova 15 (Padua: Centro per la storia dell'Universita, and Trieste:
LINT, 1983), 449-52.
The Power of the Visible 83
When Vergerio's traveling companions thought that they had spotted
enemy soldiers approaching, they hastily cast away their cloaks lest they
be robbed. Their fears proved groundless, and only Vergerio, who defi-
antly preferred to be mugged in his cloak, entered Rome fully clothed.
The violence of Italian affairs in the late Trecento had created a sort of
collective paranoia.^' Furthermore, despite physical comfort and good
health, Vergerio found himself increasingly tense during his Roman
visit. While returning one Sunday from the stational church of Saint
Paul's, he and a servant were accosted by a group of the city's magis-
trates, who approached with their attendants along a street already
jammed with carnival revelers. The magistrates compelled the servant to
surrender his horse, despite Vergerio's firm protestations of diplomatic
immunity. Vergerio only managed to rescue the horse after he had made
a round of visits to various authorities. That gave him great relief, for
otherwise the horse would have been run ragged in the carnival
30
games.
The episode confirmed Vergerio's negative impression of Rome. The
city, which had bequeathed the code of law to the Western world, had
become, in his own words, "the reign of bandits."^^ Disrespect for the
law characterized those who were responsible for upholding it. And the
moral demise of the city was reflected in its decrepit physical condition.
Vergerio had once started to write a letter in which he promised to de-
scribe the topography of Rome and her ancient monuments.^^ The exist-
ing fragment of that letter betrays the mixed emotions that Rome stirred
within him. The city was richly endowed with monuments to the
heroes of primitive Christianity; however, the abandoned state of
Rome's classical ruins left him feeling forlorn. ^^ Vergerio systematically
^ Epist., 209.
^ Ibid., 210-11.
■" Ibid., 205 ("Del mal ladron ora e speloncha e rege") and 229 ("latrones paene intra
urbem, qui vitae fortunisque omnium insidientur").
^^ Epist., 211-20. The letter also appears in Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti,
eds., Scrittori (secoli XIV-XV), vol. 4 of Codice topografico delta citta di Roma, Fonti per la
storia d'ltalia 91 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1953), 89-100. See further
Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, and
New York: Humanities Press, 1969), 56-58; Charles L. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 1985), 37-38; and Christine Smith, Architecture in
the Culture of Humanism: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Eloquence 1400-1470 (New York and Ox-
ford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 174-76.
^^ Epist., 212 ("Mihi vero, gratias Deo, posteaquam hue veni, valitudo corporis Integra
fuit, quam frugalitate et exercitio confeci, medicamentis optimis et habendae et retinendae
sospitatis; verum animo atque ingenio laboro"); and 215 ("Non est igitur ut sim deteriori
84 CHAPTER 5
listed many of the sites which pilgrims visited in and around the city;
his descriptions have a cold, clinical character. That is especially evident
in his mention of the tomb of Saint Jerome. "Next to the relic of the
Lord's manger Jerome lies buried in the ground." When Giovanni Con-
versini da Ravenna had seen the tomb of Jerome twenty years earlier, he
had shed copious tears. Despite lifelong devotion to Jerome, Vergerio
had no such emotional experience in Rome. What Jerome had worked
so hard to foster, the interweaving of the classical heritage and Christian
belief, was being torn apart before Vergerio's eyes.^'*
Vergerio uttered a profound lament for the state of classical
Rome.^^ The former greatness of the ancient city was evident in the
massive scale of the remains and the wealth of the materials used to
build it. What angered him was the contempt which contemporaries
showed for that rich heritage. Vergerio decried the possibility that the
common people, out of avarice and ignorance, might destroy all that re-
mained. Painters tore up books and used their folios to sketch cheap
souvenirs. The Romans saved themselves the bother of purchasing lime
by melting down marble remnants in furnaces scattered among the city's
ruins.^^ What humanists worked to conserve — the books and monu-
ments of antiquity— the common people destroyed. The Pyramid of
Gaius Cestius was so overgrown with vines that its inscriptions were no
longer legible. The Testaccio— a mound composed of potsherds dumped
from the neighboring warehouses in ancient times and considered by
Vergerio to constitute physical proof of Rome's imperial might— annual-
ly diminished in size during the pillaging that accompanied the carnival
festivities, Roman heroes buried along the Via Appia remained anony-
animo, verum ingenio sum tardiore quam soleo . . ."). See also ibid., 210: "cum essem animo
mihi ipsi molesto. . . ."
^ Ibid., 211-15, esp. 214: "Proxime intra urbem est ecclesia Sanctae Mariae Maioris,
miraculose monstrata, ubi iuxta praesaepe Domini Hieronymus humi sepultxis iacet." Re-
migio Sabbadini, Giovanni da Ravenna insigne figura d'umanista (1343-1408), Studi umani-
stici 1 (Como, 1924), 50-51, 159, esp. 159: "ad busta servorum tuorum Hieronymi et
Gregorii, quos summopere semper fueram veneratus, emisi. Numquam fletu maiore genitor
carissimum filium aut amicus amicum nequaquam revidendum dimisit, quam ego Hieronymi
sepulturam."
^5 Epist., 215-20.
^* Ibid., 216: "Cum enim duo sint quibus extare rerum memoria soleat, libris scilicet
atque aedificiis, duabus artibus Romani in eorum excidium pemiciemque contendunt: pi-
ctorum scilicet, qui, ut sudaria peregrinis effingat, utillimos plerumque et qui in orbe unici
sunt libros evertunt; item eorum qui fornaces exercent, qui, ne lapides e longinquo vehant,
aedificia destruunt, uti marmor et vivum lapidem convertant in calcem."
The Power of the Visible 85
mous because later Romans had pilfered the inscriptions and portraits
that originally marked their tombs.^^
For Vergerio, the ruin of Rome had escalated with disastrous conse-
quences. Lack of appreciation for the city's physical patrimony bred
lack of concern for the general quality of life. The city's air was polluted
and posed a grave health risk. Moreover, moral decay was rampant in
the city. A cavalier attitude toward the visible remains of classical civili-
zation was symptomatic of a deeper malady. Evidence of Christian con-
tempt and bigotry was visible for all to see. Vergerio's text drifted off in
mid-sentence; he apparently found the task too painful to complete. The
destruction of the statue of Virgil and the destruction of Rome stirred
within Vergerio the same loathing. Acting in the name of a misguided
piety, whether willfully or by negligence, rulers and the common people
were destroying a rich part of the cultural patrimony.
The visit to Rome confirmed Vergerio's notion that a powerful seg-
ment of society sought nothing less than the destruction of Roman cul-
ture. Ironically, it also opened up for him the possibility that he might
find patronage within the Roman church. If Zabarella received a higher
ecclesiastical office, Vergerio would readily join his household. Vergerio
also curried favor with Cardinal Cosimo Migliorati, and he continued to
correspond with him after leaving Rome.^^ Vergerio remained im-
pressed by Migliorati's availability to a host of petitioners. Any cardinal
who practiced humanity and continence stood out in sharp contrast to
the immoral tenor of life in Rome. Such virtue was "a rarity in the city
and unique in the Roman curia." Faithful to the rhetorical canons
which taught the persuasive power of ethos, Vergerio began to formu-
late a vision of reform for the church that would have positive effects on
society as well.^'
Moral decline had become widespread due to the Schism that rival
claimants to the papacy had caused. In Vergerio's estimation, the divi-
sion continued due to moral failings: ambitious prelates received support
from malevolent rulers. Only one other schism, that between the Or-
'' Ibid., 218.
^ Ibid., 224-27.
^' Ibid., 228-30, esp. 229: "Quae vox tametsi ad summam laudem uiam pertineat, tamen
et conditionem nostrorum tenijxjrum notat, cum est in urbe raritas, in curia solitudo, apud
omnes inopia, ac nimirum quidem obsidemur undique, finitimos hostes habemus, latrones
paene intra urbem, qui vitae fortunisque omnium insidientur." The date and the addressee
of the letter are uncertain.
i
86 CHAPTER 5
thodox and Roman churches, had lasted so long and produced such ca-
lamitous effects. As Orthodox Christians now found themselves reduced
to a tiny parcel of territory by the onslaught of Islam, so Latin Chris-
tians found themselves plagued by civil wars and threatened by the
Turks. The Schism would end, Vergerio argued, when churchmen and
their political allies underwent a moral conversion. They must begin to
live the values which Christians proclaimed. Otherwise, Vergerio felt
certain that the metaphorical destruction of the soul of Christianity
through schism would continue to produce physical wounds like the
endless wars between England and France.
From 1397 to 1400, Vergerio continued to pursue a demanding pro-
gram that entailed diverse studies. He apparently completed his law de-
gree in Bologna because the records of the University of Padua described
him in May of 1400 as a doctor of civil law {in iure civili peritus) .'^ Be-
fore returning to Padua, however, Vergerio had also seized the opportu-
nity to study Greek under Manuel Chrysoloras. Chrysoloras had come
to Florence in February of 1397, and by October of 1398 Vergerio was
searching for housing there.'*^ Because Vergerio had joined the group
so late in the course, he admitted that he competed hard to catch up
with the others.'^^ His success made an impression on his fellow stu-
dents. Once Leonardo Bruni had realized Vergerio's extensive education,
he concealed his insecurities by assuring himself that Vergerio must be
older than he. In fact, Vergerio's achievements as a humanist at that
point in his career overshadowed the more modest accomplishments of
his Florentine confreres. Moreover, his study of Greek after attaining
degrees in law and medicine proved his strong inclination to combine
humanist studies with his professional endeavors.'^^
^° See ibid., 225, 227, 233; and Smith's comments on 237 n. 1. Bartolomeo da Saliceto
had come to Bologna to teach law from 1398 to 1399. From 1400 to 1402, he lectured at
Padua; see Annalisa Belloni, Professori giuristi a Padova nel secolo XV: Profili bio-bibliografici
e cattedre, lus Commune: Studien zur europaischen Rechtsgeschichte 28 (Frankfurt am Main:
V. Klostermann, 1986), 91, 161-67.
^' Epist., 227; and Giuseppe Cammelli, Manuele Crisolora, vol. 1 of I dotti bizantini e le
origini dell'umanesimo (Florence: Vallecchi, 1941), 52-57, 110-16.
^^ Epist., 244-45: "Nam multos ab initio qui convenerant, alios discendi labor deterruit,
alios sciendi desperatio, quasi maiore cura et longiore tempore opus esset. Quicquid tamen
illud aut quantulumcumque est, quod haerere in / tempore admodum brevi potuit, me sortis
meae non pudet, nee paenitet studii laborisque causa suscepti. Nam metuens id quod evenit,
nos scilicet premature magistro destituendos, simul etiam quia postremus omnium in ea
studia veneram, attentius invigilabam magnaque cura insudavi, ut aliquos, qui me praeibant,
si possem, attingerem."
■•' See Smith, Epist, 241 n. 2, 242 n. 4; Garin, "Ritratto di Bruni," 4-5; Hans Baron,
The Power of the Visible 87
An outbreak of plague forced the suspension of the lessons in 1399,
and early the following year Chrysoloras left Florence to meet the em-
peror Manuel Palaeologus in Pavia. Vergerio departed soon after Chry-
soloras, By 30 April 1400, after an absence of almost three years, Verge-
rio had resettled in Padua, where he continued to study Greek on his
own. In his loneliness, Vergerio found the Greek books that he had bor-
rowed to be his only serious academic companionship. He read many
works of Plutarch, selections from Thucydides, the Gorgias of Plato
twice, and the better part of the Odyssey with help from the literal Latin
translation of Leonzio Pilato.^ Perennial problems gave him no re-
spite. His parents suffered from ill health; moreover, the plague struck
Bologna in the spring of 1398, Florence the next year, and Padua during
the summer of 1400. Although Vergerio continued to nurture a wide va-
riety of contacts, he reaped no career benefit. Frustrated, he lashed out
bitterly at the success that sycophants enjoyed in his day. Myopic
patrons rewarded their fawning dishonesty.^^ Driven by penury and
"The Year of Leonardo Bruni's Birth and Methods for Determining the Ages of Humanists
Bom in the Trecento," Speculum 52 (1977): 599-604, 614-25; and Ronald G. Witt, Hercules
at the Crossroads: The Life, Works, and Thought of Coluccio Salutati, Duke Monographs in
Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1983), 303-10.
Remigio Sabbadini suggested that Vergerio may have accompanied Pietro Marcello from
Bologna to Florence; see his "Antonio da Romagno e Pietro Marcello," Nuovo archivio
veneto 30 (1915): 218-19.
^ See EpisL, 238-42, 244; Agostino Pertusi and Ezio Franceschini, "Un'ignota Odissea
latina dell'ultimo Trecento," Aevum 33 (1959): 325-27, 351; Pertusi, Leonzio Pilato fra
Petrarca e Boccaccio: Le sue versioni omeriche negli autograft di Venezia e la cultura greca del
primo Umanesimo, Civilta veneziana: Studi 16 (Venice: Istituto per la Collaborazione Cul-
tural, 1964), 140, 149-50, 522, 531-63, 558-59; and Pertusi, "L'umanesimo greco dalla fine
del secolo XTV agli inizi del secolo XVI," in Dal primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento,
vol. 3 of Storia della cultura veneta (Vicenza: Pozza, 1980-81), 177-89.
*^ EpisL, 208, 225-27, 247-48. From Rome, Vergerio corresponded with Ognibene Scola
in Padua (ibid., 205-11); Scola may have studied Greek in Florence before he officially en-
tered the court of Francesco Novello in May of 1399. Unlike Roberto Cessi, "Nuove
ricerche su Ognibene Scoh," Archivio storico lombardo 36, fasc. 23 (1909): 95-101, and Cam-
melli, Manuele Crisolora, 67-68, I believe that Scola did study in Florence because Leonardo
Bruni described him as a "companion in studies" and addressed him by the Greek form of
his name ("Panagathus"); see Francesco Paolo Luiso, Studi sull'Epistolario di Leonardo Bruni,
Lucia Gualdo Rosa, ed., Studi storici, fasc. 122-24 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il
Medio Evo, 1980), 18-19. Vergerio also associated himself with an influential group of
lawyers at the Carrara court (Ludovico Buzzacarini, his father Arcoano, and his brothers Pa-
taro and Francesco, Antonio da Sant'Angelo, and Pietro Alvarotti [Epist, 209]). He corre-
sponded with Michele da Rabatta, indicating his readiness to serve the influential Carrara
courtier at the first invitation (232-34). Zabarella and Vergerio apparently promoted the ef-
forts of Alano Adimari to become bishop of Florence (230-32). Vergerio thanked Giacomo
da Treviso for helping him to meet Carlo Zeno, the wealthy Venetian admiral (221-23; and
Margaret L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance [Princeton: Prince-
ton Univ. Press, 1986], 50-51). Luigi Pesce has argued that Giacomo probably urged Ver-
88 CHAPTER 5
fear of the plague, Vergerio had to return home to Capodistria in the
summer of 1400. His fortunes had fallen in inverse proportion to his
academic training. Toward the end of the year, Vergerio finally had
sufficient funds and mettle to return to Padua. At that low point,
Francesco Zabarella dedicated to him a treatise entitled De felicitate.^
As Zabarella noted, happiness was a subject that the two friends often
had occasion to discuss. Ever in quest of that elusive goal, Vergerio
rededicated himself to impressing the Carrara rulers with his political
acumen.
gerio to seek a prebend in the diocese of Treviso in 1398; see his La chiesa di Treviso nel
primo Quattrocento, Italia sacra: Studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica 37-39 (Rome:
Herder, 1987), 207-9.
^ See the colophon to the treatise in Padua, Bibl. del Seminario, cod. 196, 225 (quoted
also by Smith, Epist., 367 n. 1: "Hoc opus inscripsit mihi idem dominus Franciscus, vir, ut
in iure facile omnium princeps, ita et in ceteris scientia atque eloquentia praeclarissimus, cui
dignas agere gratias non satis queo cum ob hoc tum et alia in me beneficia, quae tot extant
ut nedum remunerare sed ne rer\jamerare quidem possim. Petruspaulus Vergerius de
lustinopoli scripsit haec"); Conrad Bischoff, Studien zu P. P. Vergerio dem Alteren (Berlin
and Leipzig, 1909), 85-88; zwdG^s^iroZontSi, Francesco Zabarella (1360-1417) (Padua, 1915),
19-22. The Padua codex is copied from the exemplar made for Vergerio and indicates that
Zabarella completed the treatise on 18 October 1400 while at the Benedictine monastery of
S. Maria di Praglia in the Euganean hills. To thank Zabarella, Vergerio composed a poem
(inc: Omnia iamdudum). The outbreak of the plague at century's end was especially
devastating. According to Sabbadini, "Antonio da Romagno," 208, Antonio lost a daughter
in 1398 and then his wife and five sons between August and September of 1400. On the
same occasion, Antonio's brother lost four sons. Vergerio sent Zabarella's treatise, De
pestilentia vitanda (1399), to an acquaintance (Salutati?) in Florence. See Epist, 399-422; and
Agostino Sottili, "La questione ciceroniana in una lettera di Francesco Zabarella a Francesco
Petrarca (tav. IV)," Quademi per la storia dell'Universita di Padova 6 (1973): 34. From 1400
to 1401, Salutati and Zabarella exchanged letters regarding the death of two of Salutati's
sons, and Giovanni Conversini wrote a consolatory work on the death of his son Israele.
See George W. McClure, Sorrow and Consolation in Italian Humanism (Princeton: Princeton
Univ. Press, 1991), 95-98, 104.
CHAPTER 6
A Humanist Education
for Adolescents
Around 1389, Pierpaolo Vergerio had written for the first time to
Francesco Novello in search of patronage. In that letter, Vergerio
had proposed that a proper course of studies would steer a prince away
from hedonism and avarice toward a Ufe of personal continence and
civic justice. An education which formed character would enhance the
dignity of the nJer and benefit his subjects. In the fall of 1401, Vergerio
sketched out a similar route to greatness for Ubertino da Carrara, Fran-
cesco's ten-year-old son. He first emphasized that young persons of
Ubertino's nobility developed their natural abilities by following moral
exemplars. Two distinct but related arts nurtured virtue and engendered
glory for the powerful. First, rulers must concern themselves with the
discipline of arms, in which the Carrara had traditionally excelled. How-
ever, Vergerio sought to broaden their education by introducing a po-
tential new source for praise, the discipline of letters.^
By early 1403 at the latest, Vergerio had completed a short treatise
which expanded upon the basic notions proposed in his letters to the
Carrara.^ He stated in the preface that he had written two short books
' Epist, 31-32, 249-51.
^ On the date of the treatise, see Leonardo Smith, EpisL, 253-54 n. 3; and Giovanni
Calo, "Nota vergeriana: II De ingenuis moribus e il supposto precettorato del Vergerio alia
corte di Francesco Novello," Rinascita 2 (1939): 228-32. Both scholars argue for a date be-
fore the defeat of Francesco Novello at the battle of Casalecchio on 26 June 1402. Vergerio's
use of Francesco HI and Giacomo da Carrara as examples of finely conditioned princes who
threw the javelin and swam well may refer to their escape from a Visconti prison after Casa-
90 CHAPTER 6
"on the liberal studies of adolescents and their morals" {de liberalibus ad-
ulescentiae studiis ac moribus). As his letters had already suggested, Ver-
gerio posited a close relationship between specific studies and formation
of character. Adolescence signaled the arrival of moral responsibility and
all of the confusion associated with the maturation process. Vergerio
therefore designed a program of liberal studies that would instill a sense
of moral development for the adolescent. Scholars have long debated the
originality of Vergerio's ideas and the extent to which he was influenced
by previous theorists.^ The treatise was the first book that Vergerio pub-
lished, and it is best characterized as a work of personal synthesis. In it
he reformulated ideas about education which had evolved from the time
that he had begun to teach at the University of Bologna in 1388.
Vergerio addressed the work to the son of the Carrara prince. Ac-
cordingly, the treatise focuses on the life of the aristocracy, particularly
in the advice given on training in arms, where a note of Spartan rigor
dominates. Yet Vergerio had a broader audience in mind. He argued
that education should be the concern not only of the family but of the
state. In the final analysis, Vergerio intended his remarks for anyone
who had a natural inclination to liberal studies and participated in politi-
cal life.'^ Vergerio reiterated some fundamental convictions in the work.
lecchio; see PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Attilio Gnesotto, ed., 141. Eugenio Garin judiciously
states that Vergerio wrote the treatise at the beginning of the fifteenth century and may
have finished it as early as 1402; see his L'educazione in Europa (1400-1600): Problemi e pro-
grammi (2d ed. Bari: Laterza, 1966), 114-15, A terminus ante quem is supplied by Naples,
Bibl. Nazionale, cod. VIII.C.8. As described by Cesare Cenci, Manoscritti francescani della
Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, Spicilegium bonaventurianum 7-8 (Quaracchi: Typographia
Collegii S. Bonaventurae, and Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras
Aquas, 1971), 2:819-21, the colophon (fol. 128) indicates that the treatise was copied at Pa-
dua on 12 September 1403. The scribe, Antonius Petri Donadei de Rocca S. Stephani de
Aquila, studied canon law at the University of Padua and passed examinations in June of
1408 before a board that included Francesco Zabarella.
' See Conrad Bischoff, Studien zu P. P. Vergerio dem Alteren (Berlin and Leipzig, 1909),
79-85; Smith, Epist., xix-xx; Calo, "Nota vergeriana," 232-35; Giuseppe Saitta, L'umanesi-
mo, vol. 1 oill pensiero italiano nell'umanesimo e nel rinascimento (Bologna: C. Zuffi, 1949),
2ii7-7'i; Garin, L'educazione in Europa, 114-19; George Holmes, The Florentine Enlighten-
ment 1400-50 (New York: Pegasus, 1969), 15-16; David Robey, "Humanism and Education
in the Early Quattrocento: The De ingenuis moribus of P. P. Vergerio," Bibliotheque
d'humanisme et Renaissance 42 (1980): 27-58; Robey, "Vittorino da Feltre e Vergerio," in
Nella Giannetto, ed., Vittorino da Feltre e la sua scuola: Umanesimo, pedagogia, arti, Civilta
veneziana: Saggi 31 (Florence: Olschki, 1981), 242-43, 252-53; Benjamin G. Kohl, "Human-
ism and Education," in Albert Rabil, Jr., ed.. Humanism and the Disciplines, vol. 3 of Renais-
sance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press,
1988), 12-13; and Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning,
1300-1600 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989), 117-19.
■* For the emphasis on princes, see PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 109-11,
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 91
When he described freedom, he consistently emphasized one's interior
attitude; an individual might still be free in a situation where political
structures denied basic liberties. Authentic freedom liberated one from
the urges of self-gratification and allowed one to be useful to others.
Studies were liberal, then, to the extent that they fostered interior free-
dom through the formation of character. The formation of character
was of special concern once one reached adolescence. With puberty
came lust (libido). Finally, the educator must artfully combine discipline
and tolerance. Students needed to mature in their moral autonomy.
Vergerio's notion of freedom had evolved through his own experi-
ence and his understanding of classical ideals. Given his restrictive
notions of political participation, Vergerio tended to emphasize the mor-
al dimension of the free person. He reflected upon his own interior free-
dom and what inhibited that freedom. When human beings succumbed
to physical urges, they sacrificed their freedom. To fill one's stomach or
acquire riches or satisfy one's lust all comprised enslavement to egoistic
impulses. Genuine interior freedom expressed itself in acts of altruism.
Vergerio had studied in order that he be "free and good."^ He found
ready confirmation for his convictions in Cicero's classification of
human activities. Because some activities were performed to earn money
or to indulge sensual pleasures, Cicero labeled them sordid [illiberalis).
He rated other activities, which required greater practical intelligence
(prudentia) and provided social benefits (utilitas), as befitting a free per-
son {liberalis).^
In the treatise, Vergerio offered specific signs of a "free genius" in an
adolescent. In general, such youth possessed enthusiasm for praise and
burned with a love for glory. Vergerio pardoned adolescents for such
motivation because their powers of reason were not sufficiently devel-
oped to allow for less egoistic pursuits. Adolescents of free temperament
also enjoyed virtuous activity and were malleable enough to accept cor-
132-43 ("de armis"). For the state's responsibility to educate adolescents, see ibid., 106. On
the more general audience, see ibid., 99, 101-3, especially the remarks to Ubertino on 99:
"ut per te ceteros id aetatis commoneam."
5 EpisL, 15 (Francesco da Faenza to PPV), 22, 30, 55, 57, 60, 88, and 149.
^ Cicero Off. 1.42.150-51; and PPV, De ingenuis morihus, Gnesono, ed., 100: "Maxime
vero, qui sunt liberate ingenium a natura consecuti, sinendi non sunt aut inerti otio torpere
aut illiberalibus implicari negotiis." See also Terence y4f/. 448-49, 462-64, 886-87, Eun. 255-
64; Cicero Flac. 7.16, 8.18-19; Chaim Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during
the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1950), 7-30; and
Donald R. Kelley, The Human Measure: Social Thought in the Western Legal Tradition (Cam-
bridge, Mass., and London: Harvard Univ. Press, 1990), 50.
92 CHAPTER 6
rection. Though they should fear physical punishment, Vergerio felt it
better that they fear disrepute. He allowed for the possibility of using
the lash on a student, but he likewise condemned the sadistic excesses of
tutors of the day. Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna, Vergerio's mentor
from Paduan days, claimed in his autobiography to have witnessed one
student murdered and others beaten bloody or imprisoned naked within
a makeshift prison in the dead of winter. Vergerio sought to inculcate a
sense of civility wholly contrary to such cruelty. Genuine liberal genius
was incapable of hatred and tended to place the best interpretation on
things said or done.''
However, every adolescent faced a variety of pressures that militated
against his enthusiasm for virtue and fame. Vergerio recognized that lib-
eral studies were unpopular in his day; students preferred studies that
would assure them wealth after their education. Hardheaded pragmatism
dictated the need for studies more suited to the enterprises of commer-
cial capitalism. In fact, Vergerio claimed that severe objections had been
raised concerning the need for liberal studies from ancient times to the
present. For Vergerio, Plato's ideal of a wise ruler was the exception
that proved the rule. In the matter of what to study, moreover, many
adolescents found themselves without a choice. Either they acted from
constraint or they were influenced by false notions that they had learned
in conversations or through their encounter with prevailing social
mores. That left them only two paths to a liberal education: they were
attracted to those studies, or they were forced into them. Vergerio used
Ubertino to illustrate his point. His pursuit of a liberal education was in
part dictated by the wishes of his father and in part reflected the child's
own decision. To continue on in those studies, however, would prove
Ubertino's free genius.*
Vergerio thus discerned two competing sets of values at work in any
society. One set reflected a person's selfish instincts. The common lot of
humanity foolishly admired people driven by ambition and avarice.
They thought such individuals reaped a rich profit. The end of wealth
^ PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 101-3 ("signa liberalis ingenii"). See also Re-
migio Sabbadini, Giovanni da Ravenna insigne ftgura d'umanista (1343-1408), Studi umani-
stici 1 (Como, 1924), 11; and Grendler, Schooling, 35-36.
* Epist., 131-33, where Vergerio cites Cicero Off. 1.32.117-18. The same ideas are repeat-
ed in De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 112-16. In general, see Robert E. Proctor, "The
studia humanitatis: Contemporary Scholarship and Renaissance Ideals," Renaissance Quarter-
ly 43 (1990): 815-16; and James D. Tracy, "From Humanism to the Humanities: A Critique
of Grafton and Jardine," Modem Language Quarterly 51 (1990): 131-32.
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 93
at times even justified illegal means. The character of Herotes in Verge-
rio's Paulus dramatized in a comic setting the supposed success of un-
scrupulous entrepreneurs. Extremely clever by nature, Herotes had used
his abilities to earn pleasing remuneration. He regularly tasted the pros-
titutes whom he procured for Paulus in order to assure that they were
not poisoned. On the other hand, Vergerio felt that Petrarch had
changed his priorities in a positive way. Infatuated with Laura as an ado-
lescent, Petrarch later used his talents for literary and scholarly pursuits.
His personal fame as a poet reflected his success in a life committed to
studies that were of aid to a broader public. Vergerio contrasted arts that
were good and useful to those that were hedonistic, disadvantageous, or,
worst of all, harmful.'
In the treatise, Vergerio reiterated his fundamental educational con-
viction. Moral living was an ars. It had a set of rules derived from expe-
rience that one could communicate to students of genuine ability. Then,
through lived experience, they must learn to apply the precepts. Verge-
rio urged that all education from infancy on be directed toward helping
the seeds of virtue grow within the human heart. Moral progress was
possible throughout life, and a moral education might benefit students
of any level of intelligence. On the other hand, Vergerio emphasized to
Ubertino that there was nothing magical about such an education. It had
inherent limits imposed by the character of the student whom one
trained. An education in the good arts could do no more than mitigate
the dementia of the emperor Claudius or the cruelty of Nero. Neverthe-
less, Vergerio never wavered in his belief that such an education should
foster the humane instincts to assist others rather than the drive to
gratify oneself. ^°
Vergerio purposefully approached Ubertino at an age when he had
already begun to train with his father's army and was fast approaching
puberty. From the days of the Paulus, Vergerio had indicated his aware-
' Epist., 149, 174-75, 181-82; andDe ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 104: "Quern igitur
eum speremus futurum senem, qui sit in adulescentia tenax atque avarus? Non quidem quo
permittendae sint eis largitiones, quas exercere cum discretione munerum, personarum meri-
torumque nesciunt, sed corruptae naturae atque illiberalis ingenii sit indicium. Hi igitur aut
ad quaestuosas artes faciunt, aut manuale opus, aut negotiationem ad curam rei familiaris,
praecipue qui, etsi nobiliores fuerint quandoque artes consecuti, illastamen semper, ut cete-
ra, ad ignobilem quaestum redigunt; quae quidem res est ab ingenuis mentibus prorsus
aliena."
^° Epist., 134, 175; ^indi De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 104, 112-13, 116-17. Vergerio
cites Cicero Tusc. 3.1.2 and may also have found support in Pseudo Plutarch, "De liberis
educandis," 2A-C, 3E-F.
94 CHAPTER 6
ness of the difficult choices faced by all adolescents. At a moment when
their faculty to decide was most immature and their sexual awareness
new, adolescents were expected to choose between virtue or vice. De-
spite a subconscious insight into the ideal of virtue, Paulus had slipped
back into his profligate ways. In contrast, Vergerio's life of Petrarch was
written to illustrate that the poet had matured beyond his relationship
with Laura. To depict the habits of adolescence in his treatise, Vergerio
relied heavily upon the treatment of pathos in the second book of Aris-
totle's Rhetoric. Adolescents, on the one hand, displayed a smugness and
a readiness to conquer the world. Loathe to admit that they did not
know something, they tended rather to lie in order to protect their fra-
gile egos. On the other hand, adolescents were extremely sensitive. They
feared dishonor and lacked guile. Along that basic spectrum from exag-
gerated self-confidence to fragile sensibility, an adolescent typically suc-
cumbed to passions without permitting reason a moderating role.^^
Above all, Vergerio joined classical thinkers in positing lust {libido)
as the characteristic vice of adolescence. To counteract that vice, Verge-
rio made practical recommendations for adolescent education. Dancing
and fraternization between the two sexes should be severely restricted.
Students should be kept busy throughout the day. Perhaps with an eye
on the possibility of masturbation, Vergerio called solitude dangerous
for an adolescent. One must also carefully investigate to assure the good
reputation of the teacher. Finally, one must be attentive to the compan-
ions whom an important student like Ubertino might have. Herotes had
led Paulus astray. Already in Vergerio's initial formulation, a classical
education for adolescents had overtones of a ritual entry into manhood
that became more pronounced in certain regions of Europe in the fol-
lowing centuries. ^^
" De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 104-6, where Vergerio cites Terence And. 60-61.
'^ De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 106-11, where Vergerio cites Aristotle Rhet. 2.12.3
and Cicero Off. 1.34.122, Sen. 11.36. See also Walter J. Ong, "Latin Language Study as a
Renaissance Puberty Rite," Studies in Philology 56 (1959): 103-24. Vergerio lived in an era
that viewed masturbation as morally culpable but fairly normal. Because the practice of sod-
omy often involved pederasty, it was severely punished. See Jean-Louis Flandrin, "Repres-
sion and Change in the Sexual Life of Young People in Medieval and Early Modem Times,"
in Robert Wheaton and Tamara K. Hareven, eds., Family and Sexuality in French History
(Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 30, 40-42; and Guido Ruggiero, The
Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, Studies in the History of
Sexuality 1 (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985), 114-15, 121, 148-51. The
problem of the sexual abuse of children by their teachers partially explained why school was
held in the public squares of Roman cities; see William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cam-
bridge, Mass., and London: Harvard Univ. Press, 1989), 237. The Venetians of the fifteenth
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 95
As the student developed, the teacher should adjust his material. Ver-
gerio's treatment of the liberal arts in the treatise represents the fruit of
his long years in school. He evaluated the disciplines according to two
categories: those which supplied enjoyment and a sense of satisfaction
{fui delectationem, iucundum, pulcherrimum) and those that were useful
for activity in society {utilis, honestum). One fundamental conviction
helped Vergerio to structure learning in stages. Prepubescent boys
ishould study grammar; postpubescent adolescents needed to learn the
humanities because they focused upon the formation of character.'^
Vergerio recognized from his own experience that the study of Latin
grammar supplied the foundation for all subsequent learning. In 1395, he
had outlined the appropriate topics for the study of grammar: tropes and
figures of speech, spelling and syllabification, prosody and prose
rhythms, pronunciation and compositional exercises. Together with
Francesco Zabarella, Vergerio put together a manual for grammarians,
De arte metrica. Yet, like many educators, Vergerio had no taste for
teaching grammar. In 1396, Vergerio candidly admitted that the constant
need to drill grammar students threatened to rot one's brain. His treatise
insisted that students not rush on to weightier subjects without attaining
facility in Latin grammar, but Vergerio left its teaching to others.^^
The treatise also offers a picture of Vergerio 's experience of the uni-
versity curriculum. Having begun his career as a lecturer in dialectics,
Vergerio continued to respect the ways in which the discipline sharp-
ened one's reasoning and helped one to argue to sound conclusions.
However, logic lacked a moral purpose. ^^ Vergerio remembered that
his study of the disciplines of the quadrivium and of science had proven
personally engaging. He saw music primarily as a form of recreation,
though the investigation of mathematical proportions helped one to
century tried to solve the same problem by limiting the hours during which school might
meet; see Ruggiero, Boundaries of Eros, 138.
'^ Epist., 131-34, 142 (where Vergerio describes a boy of twelve or thirteen years of age
as a puer), 276-77. Among classical sources, Vergerio may have drawn upon Pseudo Plu-
tarch, "De liberis educandis," 12A-13C, Seneca Ep. 88.20, and Quintilian 1.4.5-6. Harris,
Ancient Literacy, 233, challenges the opinion that there were three clear-cut stages in Roman
schooling (ludi magister, grammaticus, rhetor).
'^ See Epist, 44-45, 157-59; Remo L. Guidi, Aspetti religiosi nella letteratura del Quattro-
cento (Rome and Vicenza: Libreria Intemazionale Edizioni Francescane, 1973-83), 4:58-69;
and Harris, Ancient Literacy, 237. The manuscript containing the De arte metrica, Venice
Marc. lat. Xin.41 (4729), has corrections and additions in the hand of Pietro da Monugna-
na.
'* EpisL, 42, 85; and De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 123. ^
96 CHAPTER 6
gauge the reasons for consonance and dissonance. He frankly liked the
certitude of the answers one reached in the mathematical disciplines
(arithmetic and geometry). He found that astronomy raised our minds
to a more luminous world. Accurate calculations allowed one to predict
the conjunction of the stars, chiefly for eclipses of the sun and moon.^^
Together with rhetoric, Vergerio gave most attention in his treatise
to natural science. He recapitulated his study of the Aristotelian corpus,
moving from the causes and accidents of animate and inanimate objects
{De physico) to the movements of the planets and their effects on earth
{De caelo et mundo). What Vergerio particularly enjoyed was the ability
of science to explain matters that the masses treated as marvels. That
was especially true of phenomena that occurred in the atmosphere
around the earth, which acquired the status of portents in the common
imagination. Human intelligence was drawn to investigate such un-
knowns. Vergerio saw medicine as closely conjoined and, in effect, de-
rived from natural science. The study of medicine had appealed to Ver-
gerio. He had hoped that it would prove useful in healing bodily illness.
However, Vergerio decried the manner of exercising the discipline as
"least liberal."^^
From subsequent remarks and from the premise of his entire treatise,
it is fair to infer that he disliked the demand for money and concomi-
tant lack of moral sensibilities among practicing physicians in his day.
That realization may explain why one as interested as Vergerio was in
scientific investigation ultimately decided not to practice medicine.
Though he experienced the fascination of the scientific world, he looked
for more from learning than merely the pleasure of discovery. As his
own studies progressed, Vergerio increasingly tended to emphasize the
importance of moral philosophy. Vergerio saw parallels between natural
and moral philosophy. Both delved into areas with uncertainties and un-
16 ppY^ Dg ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 124-25. In 1391, Vergerio had used a
formula to reckon the number of troops involved in the campaign against Giangaleazzo Vis-
conti {Epist., 32). By 1400, however, Vergerio's friends wrote to advise him of a coming
eclipse. He admitted that he no longer had time to calculate such matters for himself be-
cause his priorities had changed. See Epist., 236; and Tiziana Pesenti, Professori e promotori
di medicina nello Studio di Padova dal 1405 al 1509: Repertorio bio-bibliografico, Contributi
alia storia dell'Universita di Padova 16 (Padua: Centro per la storia dell'Universita, and
Trieste: LINT, 1984), 30-32.
17 ppv, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 125-26. Vergerio dismissed theology as
nothing more than Aristotelian metaphysics which treated ultimate causes and matters that
were removed from sense perception (126). See also Robey, "Humanism and Education,"
45.
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 97
knowns. However, natural philosophy comprised a speculative science,
whereas ethics focused upon behavior. And the natural sciences had no
need of public speaking. Scientists worked in isolation from the crowds
of the public squares.**
By 1396, Vergerio had formulated a special program of education for
those interested in a career in public service. In three letters to Ludovico
Buzzacarini, Vergerio argued for the utility of history, moral philoso-
phy, and rhetoric." History alone had the capacity to conserve the
past record of human ciJture. It supplied a vital source of information
and of vivid illustration. Only a sound grounding in moral philosophy
directed men away from the insatiable quest for riches. Vergerio pre-
ferred to measure men by the quality of their lives. The letter on
rhetoric is a watershed for the humanist movement. It is self-consciously
avant-garde. When Vergerio advocated that judicial trials be contested
through speeches, he thereby argued for the restoration of rhetoric to its
traditional social settings. Secondly, he offered Cicero as the sole model
for correct oratorical practice. By arguing for Cicero's superiority to
Virgil, he suggested that oratory had greater social benefits than poetry.
Finally, he specified principles for the formation of the orator, which
stressed decorum in matters of style and substance in opposition to
unrestrained embellishment. "What could be more insane, given that we
communicate to understand and be understood, than to waste our
efforts in speaking in such a way that no one could possibly understand
us.>"20
Historians have rightly noted that Vergerio's curriculum for those
seeking a career in public affairs comprised the most creative aspect of
the entire treatise. Repeating his previous convictions, Vergerio recom-
mended training in moral philosophy, history, and eloquence.^' Moral
'* Epist, 30, 39, 41-42, 55-56, 62-63, 88-89, esp. 43: "Re quidem sentio quantae iacturae
sit eloquentiae studium alteri studio deditis, et nobis maxime qui scientiis mutis insistimus."
" EpisL, 172-79. For the friendship between Vergerio and Buzzacarini (ca. 1360-1435),
see Gianni Ballistreri, "Buzzacarini, Ludovico," DBI 15:644-45.
Epist, 178: "Quid enim potest esse dementius quam, cum ideo sermo et datus et re-
ceptus sit ut invicem inteUigamur, id sciUcet curare dicendo, ne intelligi possumus?" Ronald
Witt has demonstrated that Vergerio here adapted ideas of Cicero Or. 11.37-13.42; see his
"Still the Matter of the Two Giovannis: A Note on Malpaghini and Conversino," forth-
coming in Rinascimento, n.s., 35 (1995).
^' PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 121-22. See further Quentin Skinner, The
Renaissance, vol. 1 of The Foundations of Modem Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1978), 90; Robey, "Humanism and Education," 43-44, 47; John M. McMana-
mon, "Innovation in Early Himianist Rhetoric: The Oratory of Pier Paolo Vergerio the
98 CHAPTER 6
philosophy was prescriptive, offering principles on proper behavior and
on general and specific duties within society. It was the most liberal of
all the arts because zeal for integrity produced free individuals. Since his-
tory recorded examples of actions and convictions from ages past, it sup-
plied illustrations for the principles of moral philosophy. Vergerio con-
ceded the novelty of including rhetoric within the program and defend-
ed its appropriateness by adducing the Roman conviction that eloquence
belonged to political culture {civilis scientia)P One mastered the art by
acquiring the ability to speak seriously and with appropriate embellish-
ment in order to persuade one's fellow citizens.
He expanded upon his views of rhetoric later in the treatise.^^ He
lamented the state of the discipline in his own day. Of the three great
opportunities for public speaking in antiquity, only that of celebratory
rhetoric had survived. Lawyers no longer gave structured discourses
when prosecuting or defending an accused criminal. Princes no longer
heard speeches when seeking advice on political decisions, and the gen-
eral public lacked all sophistication in recognizing authentic eloquence.
They simply were satisfied to be entertained. That left only epideictic
speeches, and even they were not composed according to the canons of
rhetoric established in antiquity. Rhetoric should regain its place as the
most important discipline of the trivium and as a key study for all liber-
al minds engaged in public affairs. Vergerio's defense of rhetoric and its
place in a curriculum for political formation redefines the social role of
the humanist intellectual.
In the treatise, Vergerio actually analyzed the respective value of a
variety of educational curricula. He discussed the value of the disciplines
that the Greeks had taught to boys. He evaluated the trivium, the
quadrivium, and the professional studies of the universities of his day,
calling upon his own lengthy experience. He placed special emphasis on
three disciplines that would permit humanists to recover the rhetorical
culture of Greco-Roman antiquity. The humanist orator might then re-
assume his place at the center of public life. In evaluating various pro-
grams of education, Vergerio saw positive aspects in all of them. Never-
theless, he did emphasize basic differences among the arts and sciences.
Elder," Rmascimento, n.s., 22 (1982): 6; and Benjamin G. Kohl, "The Changing Concept of
the studia humanitatis in the Early Renaissance," Renaissance Studies 6, no. 2 (1992): 194.
^ Cicero Inv. 1.5.6, cited by Quintilian 2.15.33. Cf. Cicero De or. 1.43.193.
^^ See PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 123-24; and McManamon, "Innova-
tion," 7-9.
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 99
Disciplines such as grammar and dialectic had universal application for
their preparatory nature. Disciplines such as arithmetic, geometry, as-
tronomy, and natural science gave the learner a sense of personal satis-
faction upon mastery. Disciplines such as moral philosophy, history,
and rhetoric made the student a useful member of society. Vergerio also
felt that law might serve a useful purpose, provided that its practitioners
did not purvey their expertise to get rich.^"* There were disciplines
about which Vergerio expressed mixed feelings. Though poetry might
improve one's writing ability and assist character development, it still
seemed to Vergerio primarily a form of entertainment.^^ Vergerio also
noted that those elements of "drawing" {ars designativa, ars protractiva)
which were utilized to write books had great importance in preserving
classical learning. Vergerio once digressed in the course of his treatise so
that he might lament the loss of so many ancient books. As a remedy,
he urged the preparation of a pool of copyists trained in the new canons
of handwriting.^^
In concluding his analysis, Vergerio emphasized that one need not
master all of the aforementioned disciplines to acquire a liberal educa-
tion. He may have spoken from his own unusually extensive academic
experience. Students should construct a curriculum based upon their
talents and interests.^'' They should also remember that there are links
among the disciplines. For example, one with ready wit but poor com-
munication skills might profit by studying prose composition and rhet-
oric. There were dangers in an inordinate curiosity, which might lead a
student to sample too many disciplines or to concentrate exclusively on
24 ppVj De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 126.
^ Ibid., 14-25. Vergerio admits that music likewise provides entertainment, but its har-
monies might moderate the soul's wantonness (lascivia).
^^ See PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 122-23 (on drawing); Michael Baxandall,
Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial
Composition 1350-1450, Oxford-Warburg Studies 6 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 125; and Bax-
andall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of
Pictorial Style (2d ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), 139-41. Vergerio
felt that the Greeks valued drawing for typically pragmatic reasons. Given that the Greeks
liked to purchase painted vases, pictures, and statues, training in drafting helped one to rec-
ognize artistic quality at a fair price. Applying Vergerio's fundamental categories, drafting
among the Greeks was useful {utilis) and respectable {honesta). In the early fifteenth century,
however, drafting had lost much worth because those skills were left almost exclusively to
painters, who practiced a mechanical art. In the digression, Vergerio rated books superior
to the visual arts of painting and sculpture. While visual representations captured the exteri-
or aspect of a person or situation at a fixed point in time, books could record the character
of an individual or of a society as it developed over time (119-21).
^ PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 126-28.
100 CHAPTER 6
one. As always, Vergerio urged a student not to structure his educational
program in an effort to gain wealth.
Vergerio 's open approach to organizing a curriculum reflects a basic
quality of the entire treatise. As David Robey has observed, Vergerio
balanced any rigor in his educational recommendations with a sense of
tolerance toward the maturing student. He had imbibed the revolution-
ary spirit of the comedy of Terence early in his career and carried it
over into his treatise on liberal education. He admitted that the signs he
offered for spotting a "liberal genius" were by no means infallible. Na-
ture herself tended to hide succulent fruits under a prickly skin. After af-
firming that lust {libido) was the characteristic vice of adolescence, he
cautioned that one could not therefore conclude that all adolescents
were guilty of practicing the vice. He wished to alert parents and
teachers to a tendency. Even children with learning impairments might
profit from an education focused upon the formation of character. One
should offer them subjects in which they showed the greatest promise of
success. Although Vergerio took special interest in the value of "letters"
(litterae) for one dedicated to public service, he thought reading and
writing valuable for the contemplative life as well. Letters supplied a
universal therapy for the problems of laziness or anxiety.^*
Vergerio's tolerant approach did not mean that he was inattentive to
detail. In fact, he paid close attention to the overall environment in
which the educator worked. In the Paulus, he had satirized the excessive
license enjoyed by university students from wealthy families. His con-
versations at Padua with Giovanni Conversini confirmed his notion of
the dangers of student revelry. Early in his life, Giovanni had sold his
property and then set out to enjoy himself. He was a welcome guest at
student parties, given his ability to compose bawdy lyrics for his music.
Vergerio himself knew the ways in which Paduan students preyed upon
unsuspecting citizens, whom they robbed of their money.^^ Thus, Ver-
gerio recommended that the education of adolescents take place away
from the family home and the city of origin, and he preferred the situa-
tion of a boarding school where all organizational aspects fell under the
control of the master. Vergerio outlined a day that was equally divided
between study, eating and relaxation, and sleep. Adolescents needed a
^ Ibid., 102 (cf. Epist., 89), 107, 113, 117-21; and Robey, "Humanism and Education,"
29-37.
^' See Sabbadini, Giovanni da Ravenna, 31-32; and PPV, De principibus Carrariensibus,
RIS 16:143C-44A.
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 101
regimen of food and drink that emphasized essential nourishment,
which did not include wine. They should receive training in proper
manners. He also gave explicit instructions for the structuring of leisure
activities as he remembered his own outings with Francesco Zabarella.
To sharpen one's diligence, one might hunt, fowl, or fish. To lighten
one's burdens, Vergerio suggested riding a horse, taking a leisurely walk,
exchanging humorous anecdotes, and listening to music. He commended
games of skill because they required training and practice like the arts.
On the contrary, he proscribed games of chance like throwing dice.^°
Among the most important elements of the learning environment
were those that one could see. Vergerio never wavered in his commit-
ment to the power of the visible. To characterize the program that he
had in mind, he opened the treatise with a series of metaphors from
visual arts such as architecture and pottery. For example, he states that
adolescence was the moment to lay foundations for one's future life as
an adult. He also encourages educators who work with adolescent stu-
dents to mold their souls toward a life of virtue. Perhaps most pervasive
was a metaphor from sculpture. Vergerio saw the liberal arts as polish-
ing one's natural gifts of mind and body. That education was the culmi-
nation of a process: one must first select raw material of promise, then
rough out a basic design, and finally polish and finish the work. Verge-
rio gladly left the initial stages of introducing children to Latin to the
grammarians. They were the skilled stonecutters who made the polish-
ing work of the humanists possible. Humanists, however, were to be the
educational artists.^^
The representation of moral character served as a matrix for virtually
all of Vergerio's educational convictions. As a young student himself, he
had asserted that "it befits every individual to conform himself to the
examples of [good] persons." In the treatise, Vergerio repeated a chal-
lenge to educators first offered by Plato and then by Cicero. "Since
[adolescents], given their inexperience in human affairs, are unable
through reasoning to embrace the appealing visage itself of honest vir-
tue, which, if it could be seen by the eyes, would excite wondrous affec-
tion for learning about itself . . . the next best approach consists in their
attempting, from their zeal for glory and praise, to achieve the highest
^ PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 108-9, 111, 137, 142-45.
'' See ibid., 97, 99; and Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, 27-29. Cf. Harris, Ancient lAt-
eracy, 160, who notes that, in matters of education, Plautus compared the role of parents to
that of builders {MostelUria 125-26).
102 CHAPTER 6
Standards available. "^^ Socrates had urged students to look into a mir-
ror and see if they saw the moral person they would wish to be. Verge-
rio felt that students should look upon men of recognized character. An-
cient heroes had been inspired to perform great deeds when they saw
the funeral masks of their ancestors or frescoes which narrated great ex-
ploits. Vergerio felt that living examples would provide the greatest spur
to virtue. One must choose a pedagogue with the greatest care and as-
sure that he was a man of integrity.^^
Aware of the power of vivid illustrations, Vergerio used them in the
treatise. To teach adolescents the danger of excessive drinking, he re-
called the Spartan custom of bringing a drunken servant into formal
banquets. Though no one should take delight in another's weakness,
Vergerio felt that the sight would impress upon adolescents the demean-
ing character of drunkenness. He contrasted appropriate recreational ac-
tivities to the emperor Domitian's habit of hunting flies with a sharp-
ened stylus. When a visitor once asked if anyone were present with the
emperor, a quick-witted servant replied, "Not even a fly." To illustrate
the principle that matters planted in tender minds are uprooted with
great difficulty, Vergerio recalled that the Greek master of the lyre,
Timotheus, had doubled his rates for students who had previously
studied with another master. Vergerio felt adolescents who set out on
the path to virtuous wisdom at a young age would continue on this path
throughout life. The common people tended to believe the opposite.
Therefore, Vergerio praised the young man who, when an elder told
him that those who show special genius at a young age often end up
being old fools, responded: "You must have been a true prodigy. "^^
The treatise reflected other personal qualities of its author. Vergerio
suggested that young people take an hourglass into a library lest they
waste their time. He always found it hard to be unoccuppied. He also
enjoyed competition with fellow students, perhaps because he was
smarter than most. He remembered that poverty had proven an obstacle
^^ PPV, De ingenuis morihus, Gnesotto, ed., 101 (citing Plato Phdr. 250D and Cicero Offl
1.5.15): "Cum enim bonum ipsum virtutis, honestatisque faciem, inexperti rerum complecti
ratione non possunt, quae si posset oculis videri, mirabiles ad sapientiam (ut inquit Plato et
Cicero meminit) de se amores excitaret, proximum est ab hoc gradu, ut gloriae laudisque
studio ad optima conari velint."
" Eptst., 37, 39, 55-56, 60; andDe ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 102-3, 107, 134-35.
Similar sentiments were expressed in Pseudo Plutarch, "De liberis educandis," 4B-5C;
Cicero Off. 1.34.122; and Quintilian 1.2.5.
'* PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 108, 112, 118-19, 128-29.
A Humanist Education for Adolescents 103
to his own learning. In keeping with his medical training, he explored
relationships between one's physical makeup and one's temperament.
There was a physical cause for adolescent passions. Because adolescents
were still growing and the humors were constantly in motion, heat
abounded within their bodies.^^ To this day, it is unclear whether the
treatise earned Vergerio a position as Ubertino's tutor. It may have
simply been one more unsuccessful effort in his search for patronage.
However, it did prove to be a masterful piece of academic synthesis,
which touched a responsive chord throughout Renaissance society.'^
In antiquity, Pseudo Plutarch had written a treatise on the education
of boys. Vergerio had now developed educational theory to treat the
training of adolescents.^'' In so doing, he gave special attention to the
training of society's governors. And in his most important ideas, he al-
ways focused on the importance of rhetoric in the curriculum. For Ver-
gerio, oratory became the matrix of a curriculum for the formation of
public servants. Rhetorical principles, in turn, shaped the content of the
treatise. By attempting to fit disciplines to individual needs, Vergerio in-
vested humanist education with an appropriate sense of decorum. By
contrasting personal gratification to public utility, he had moral values,
and not mere expediency, guide educational choices. Vergerio was the
first in his day to conceptualize stages for education that followed
human development. Adolescents needed a moral emphasis in their pro-
gram that was wasted on children. Vergerio's convictions about the im-
portance of education for the sons of the elite strengthened as he
watched the tragedy of the Carrara family unfold over the course of the
next three years.
^5 Ibid., 101 (cf. Episu, 85), 102, 106, 107, 114, and 131-32 (cf. Epist., 98-99).
^ Smith, £p«r., xxii-xxiv, 249 n. 1, argued that Vergerio did not receive a position as
Ubertino's tutor, whereas Calo, "Nota vergeriana," 237-52, took the opposite position. On
the popularity of the treatise, see Robey, "Humanism and Education," 56-58.
^^ Henri-Irenee Marrou notes that the "Plutarchan" treatise paid surprisingly little atten-
tion to schooling per se and focused rather on broader questions of forming character; see
his A History of Education in Antiquity, George Lamb, trans. (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1956), 147-48. Cf. the anonymous life of Vergerio published by Smith, Epist., 479.
CHAPTER 7
Disenchantment at Court
Among the first reactions to the De ingenuis moribus was a letter to
Vergerio from Coluccio Salutati, who praised the treatise in
generic terms for outHning a sound course of studies for adolescents that
would assist even a mature adult's development. Salutati then offered
three specific criticisms of Vergerio's work.^ In two instances, the errors
that Salutati highlighted had resulted from Vergerio's use of a scribe to
make a copy of the work for Salutati. First, Salutati chided Vergerio for
incorrectly characterizing Scipio Africanus as nondum pubes, when the
sources clearly indicated that Scipio was eighteen years old at the mo-
ment he had rescued his father. Moreover, Salutati complained of Ver-
gerio's orthography, especially his use of the Greek letter y in words
like ydoneus znd phylosophia. Vergerio responded by claiming that, after
checking the sources, he had intended to write vixdum pubes for Scipio.
In fact, Vergerio did write vixdum; the scribe miscopied his autograph.
As to orthography, Vergerio noted that he had only annotated the man-
uscript which he sent to Salutati; in the text itself, his scribe had chosen
to use y rather than i. Vergerio therefore upbraided Salutati for excessive
concern to detail when the sense of the text emerged clearly. Both gram-
mar and usage constituted valid norms for correct spelling, and so Verge-
rio didn't have to conform to Salutati's rule.
Vergerio's exasperation toward the end of his response stemmed in
' Epist, 253-57, for Saluuti's letter, and 257-62, for Vergerio's response. See further
Ronald G. Win, Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works, and Thought of Coluccio Salutati,
Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ.
Press, 1983), 237, 287, 292, 400 n. 27, and 420.
106 CHAPTER 7
large part from the stinging character of Salutati's most substantial criti-
cism. Salutati claimed that, in the preface, Vergerio had mistakenly cited
a corrupt text of Cicero {Sen. 3.8). The textual problem led to an inaccu-
rate representation of the Athenian statesman, Themistocles. According
to Salutati, Themistocles had attributed his stature [nobilitas) to Athens,
his birthplace. Salutati urged Vergerio to correct his text and bluntly
suggested that it would be better to throw the whole work out than to
allow it to circulate in its present form.^ Vergerio did little to hide his
anger at Salutati's reaction. He took Salutati's portrayal of Themistocles
as personally insulting. Throughout his life, Vergerio remained sensitive
to the modest character of his own place of birth, Capodistria. Salutati's
position implied that great men came only from distinguished cities. By
the end of his response, Vergerio openly charged Salutati with pedant-
Vergerio felt that Salutati had ignored the fundamental points of his
treatise and focused upon marginal issues. Salutati accused Vergerio of
following a textual corruption which one could prove by examining the
Platonic source from which Cicero had quoted. Vergerio responded
with irritation to the suggestion about how to proceed in textual mat-
ters. He reminded Salutati that he had skills which the learned chancel-
lor did not possess; he had not only consulted the Latin version of Plato
but the Greek original as well. Still, Vergerio sarcastically observed, he
preferred to err with Cicero in this instance. That reflected Vergerio's
Ciceronianism and his sense that the observation of Themistocles in-
tended to teach that external factors like birthplace did not produce
human greatness. Athens had produced its fair share of inglorious
individuals. And, had Themistocles been born in an obscure place like
Serfo (or Capodistria), he might still have achieved equal fame by
developing his many talents. Vergerio had just completed a treatise on
humanist education that emphasized training individual genius, no
matter where it was found. Salutati had missed the point. The inter-
change between Vergerio and Salutati was symptomatic of a change in
Salutati's position among the younger generation of humanists. His
^ Epist., 256: "Melius est enim totum abicere quam posteris aut praesentibus legendo
quod reprehendi valeat exhibere."
' Ibid., 259 ("in contentione praesertim, per quam vel modestissimi solent excitari"), and
261, where Vergerio likens his situation to that of one preaching before an audience com-
posed exclusively of clergy who constantly carp on the slightest weakness in the sermon.
Disgusted, the preacher upbraids his audience with the maxim that an eagle does not bother
to capture flies.
Disenchantment at Court 107
cautious pedantry irritated them as they sought to advance their own
careers.^
Vergerio did not carry on the debate any further with Salutati. He
found his attention riveted upon the political scene at Padua as events
came to a head for the regime of the Carrara.^ During the spring and
the summer of 1402, the fortunes of the anti-Visconti coalition reached
their lowest point. After proving an utter disappointment on the battle-
field, the mercenary army led by Rupert of the Palatinate, pretender to
the imperial throne, retreated from Padua to Germany in April, On 26
June 1402, the coalition's forces suffered a crushing defeat at the battle
of Casalecchio.^ The defeat was especially costly for Francesco Novello.
His two eldest sons, Francesco III and Giacomo, were taken prisoner
during the battle. By early September, Giangaleazzo Visconti had se-
cured possession of Bologna and encamped outside the walls of Florence.
If Florence capitulated, there seemed no way to prevent Giangaleazzo
from creating an Italian monarchy. Everything changed, however, with
the sudden death of Giangaleazzo in September. His forces retreated
from Florence shortly thereafter.
By November of 1402, Padua had cause once again to celebrate. The
escape of Francesco Novello 's two sons from their Visconti captors sym-
bolized the reviving fortunes of Padua and the anti-Visconti coalition.
Vergerio composed a celebratory poem to mark the return of Francesco
III and Giacomo. As he had done in speeches ten years earlier, he used
the harmony of the city-state on that occasion to signify the proper rela-
tionship between the Carrara ruler and the citizenry. Moreover, Verge-
rio emphasized that the brothers had escaped because of their sound
physical conditioning. Their daring actions became an endorsement for
those sections of the De ingenuis moribus where Vergerio had urged that
* Witt, Hercules, 392-413.
^ See Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Re-
publican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press,
1955; rev. ed., Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), 31-33; Philip J. Jones, The Malatesta
of Rimini and the Papal State (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1974),
115-19; Benjamin G. Kohl, "Government and Society in Renaissance Padua," The Journal
of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2 (1972): 214-15; M. Chiara Ganguzza Billanovich, "Car-
rara, Francesco da, il Novello," D5/ 20:658-60; and Albert Rabil, Jr., "The Significance of
'Civic Humanism' in the Interpretation of the Italian Renaissance," in Albert Rabil, Jr., ed.,
Humanism in Italy, vol. 1 of Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy (Phila-
delphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 145-46.
^ Casalecchio today compromises a thriving commune situated along the Reno River ap-
proximately seven kilometers southwest of the city of Bologna.
108 CHAPTER 7
the children of princes be skilled in sports such as throwing the javelin
and swimming/ With the duchy of Milan plunged into turmoil after
the death of Giangaleazzo, Francesco Novello hoped to exploit Milanese
weakness and expand his territorial control. However, the Venetian gov-
ernment blocked his plans, forcing Francesco to make peace with Cate-
rina Visconti on 7 December 1402.
Francesco Novello bided his time, while new tensions simmered be-
tween himself and the Venetian Republic. In the summer of 1403, Fran-
cesco decided to defy the wishes of the Serenissima and attack Milan.
Vergerio was entrusted with the task of drafting the official letter to
Caterina Visconti announcing the opening of hostilities. What may have
been the only letter that Vergerio wrote on behalf of his long-coveted
patrons set in motion a process that would destroy their regime.^ Verge-
rio recapitulated the analysis of Francesco Novello and his advisors on
foreign policy. The Visconti state was collapsing due to internal unrest
and attack by the forces of Pope Boniface IX and the imperial pretender
Rupert. The Carrara thus feared that neighboring states, once under Vi-
sconti control, might pass into the hands of Venice. To prevent such a
situation, Padua declared war on Milan. On 21 August 1403, the Carrara
army seized Brescia but had to abandon the city shortly thereafter.
Undeterred, Francesco Novello next attempted to reconstruct the
territorial state his father had once controlled. By March of 1404, he had
negotiated an alliance with the leaders of the Delia Scala family. Togeth-
er they planned to reestablish Delia Scala rule in Verona and irestore Vi-
cenza to Paduan control. In early April, the Delia Scala, accompanied by
Francesco Novello, forcibly reentered Verona. Venice had already mo-
bilized an army to stop Francesco Novello, and the Venetian forces beat
Francesco to Vicenza. In response, Francesco placed his Delia Scala allies
under arrest and took direct control of Verona. Venice henceforth
worked for the destruction of the Carrara regime. Efforts by Florence
to mediate the conflict between the two former allies failed. From May
of 1404 until November of 1405, Venetian forces steadily closed a vise
around the city of Padua. With his population starving, Francesco sent
a delegation to Venice to negotiate a surrender. The Venetians rebuffed
^ See PPV, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 138-41; Tommaso Casini, "Notizie e
documenti per la storia della poesia italiana: Tre nuovi rimatori del trecento," II Propugna-
tore, n.s., 1.2 (1888): 352-55; and Roberto Cessi, "Nuove ricerche su Ognibene Scola," Ar-
chivio storico lombardo 36, fasc. 23 (1909): 101-2.
« Epist., 263-67.
Disenchantment at Court 109
his overture and only accepted the surrender of the city by a delegation
of citizens led by Francesco Zabarella. The Venetian authorities had
Francesco Novello and his son arrested and, in uncompromising fashion,
strangled the Carrara in prison.
Francesco Novello's reckless policy of expansion had depleted
Padua's resources and weakened his regime's popularity to the extent
that the majority of Paduans welcomed their Venetian conquerors. As
Padua and Venice engaged in their fateful confrontation, Vergerio wrote
two works that dealt with the history of the Carrara and, by implica-
tion, the political situation of his times. They were a series of biogra-
phies of the Carrara despots (De principibus Carrariensihus) and a reflec-
tion on the ideal of monarchical government {De monarchia). After
some debate among scholars, Carmela Marchente established through
close textual analysis that Vergerio wrote the Carrara biographies.' The
vocabulary of the lives betrays marked similarities to Vergerio 's favorite
words and expressions in his letters. Moreover, though relying closely
on late medieval sources, Vergerio revised their periods to match Cicero-
nian Latin.
As Vergerio had always advocated, he made the classicizing style of
the work serve the substance of his political appraisal. He evaluated the
conduct of the Carrara on ethical grounds. His study of Plutarch's biog-
raphies under the tutelage of Manuel Chrysoloras began to yield practi-
cal fruits. In the final analysis, moreover, the work betrays Vergerio's
pessimism. Too often, avarice, ambition, and jealousy proved stronger
than virtue. ^° Though dismissed by commentators in the past as noth-
ing more than a rehash of existing sources, Vergerio's biographies have
more recently earned a measure of respect for his critical approach to
historical sources. Vergerio deleted some material found in his sources
and reported other matters with a parenthetic expression of skepticism.
For example, he contemptuously banished the legendary origins of the
Carrara family to barbaric fantasies from the Dark Ages, and he edited
out stories of Paduan struggles from an era for which no validating doc-
' Carmela Marchente, Ricerche intomo at "De principibus Carrariensihus et gestis eorum
liber" attribuito a Pier Paolo Vergerio seniore, Universita di Padova: Pubblicazioni della Fa-
colta di lettere e filosofia 23 (Padua: CEDAM, 1946), 43-55. Often revising terminology
found in the sources, Vergerio resorted to classicizing words like clam, sedulo, torquere/extor-
quere. Among his characteristic parenthetical expressions, one frequently finds quid/quod at-
tinet, Non mirum igitur.
'" For the general influence of Plutarch's biographies, see Vito R. Giustiniani, "Sulle tra-
duzioni latine delle Vitae di Plutarco nel Quattrocento," Rinascimento, n.s., 1 (1961): 6-8.
110 CHAPTER 7
umentation survived. Had the Carrara family continued to rule Padua,
the work might well have won a place in the pantheon of early human-
ist historiography.^*
In evaluating historical causality, Vergerio tended to offer a variety
of explanations. He used sentences joined by correlative conjunctions
{sive . . . sive . . . sive) to acknowledge that humans rarely acted with pure
motives. However, Vergerio did not retreat from stating the motive
that, in his analysis, carried greatest weight. In the biography of Giaco-
mino da Carrara (deposed in 1355, d. 1372), Vergerio discussed the plot
that Giacomino organized to poison his nephew, Francesco il Vecchio,
with whom he then shared the lordship of Padua. *^ Among the possible
motives Vergerio first adduced family considerations. Once Giacomino
had married Margherita Gonzaga in 1353, friction developed between
her and Francesco's wife, Fina Buzzacarini. Moreover, Margherita had
soon borne a first son to Giacomino, and Giacomino wanted him to
inherit the office of despot. Secondly, Vergerio noted that Giacomino
might well have been jealous of Francesco's success as a military leader;
though younger than his uncle, Francesco had just been selected to lead
an army of Padua's allies in war. The most compelling reason, however,
lay in a simple fact of power politics. Principalities do not long allow
for equal ruling partners; common sovereignty led to inevitable antago-
nism between the corulers. The divided house of Carrara could not
stand."
Vergerio sought to derive general principles from specific episodes
because he believed that history illustrated the precepts of moral philos-
" Those who downplayed the importance of the treatise include Leonardo Smith, EpisL,
xx-xxii; Roberto Cessi, "Prefazione," in Gesta magnifica domus Carrariensis, RIS, n.s.,
17.1.2:xxxiii; Marchente, Ricerche, 64-66; and David Robey, "P. P. Vergerio the Elder: Re-
publicanism and Civic Values in the Work of an Early Italian Humanist," Past and Present,
no. 58 (February 1973): 20-22, 34-35. For the beginnings of a positive reassessment, see Eric
Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago and London:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981), 71-72.
'^ PPV, De principibus Carrariensibus, RIS 16:183B-C. The lives treat the following
members of the Carrara dynasty: Giacomo I (capitaneus et dominus generalis, 1318-20, d.
1324); Niccolo (d. 1344); Marsilio Grande {signore, 1328, 1337, d. 1338); Ubertino {signore,
1338, d. 1345); Marsilietto Papafava {signore, 1345); Giacomo 11 {signore, 1345-50); Giaco-
mino and Francesco il Vecchio {co-signori, 1350-55).
" Cf. J. K. Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
and New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), 82-83, 275-82; and Benjamin G. Kohl, "Carrara,
Francesco da, il Vecchio," DBI 20:649-50. In October of 1354, Francesco was named com-
mander of the forces of a league organized by Venice to combat Archbishop Giovanni Vi-
sconti of Milan and Francesco d'Este, Visconti's candidate for despot of Ferrara.
Disenchantment at Court Ul
ophy. He selected episodes for his biographies that had relevance for
Padua in his own day. Ideally, the lives would serve Francesco Novello
as a magister vitae. Carrara rule was born in a context of class conflict,
which Vergerio illustrated in an anecdote from the life of Giacomo I (d.
1324), founder of the dynasty. Prior to assuming the office of captain-
general, Giacomo had once represented a client in a lawsuit. His op-
posite number was a plebeian advocate who used the opportunity of-
fered by the trial to denounce the arbitrary power exercised by noble
members of the Paduan Commune. Having patiently listened to the
commoner's insults, Giacomo approached him and whispered in his ear
that he intended to cut out his tongue. That led the commoner to rage
all the louder and curse his noble adversary for his arrogant contempt
for the law.
In the meantime, Giacomo left the courtroom and returned home.
He ordered his servants to bring a cart, the Carrara family's heraldic
symbol, and to load it with grain and a pig ready for slaughter. He then
presented the cart as a gift to his commoner adversary. The commoner
accepted the gift with thanks and admitted that Giacomo had truly "cut
out the tongue" which had denounced him. From that day forward, the
commoner preached the virtues of Giacomo and became a partisan of
his political faction. ^^ Even prior to his accession as de facto despot, Gia-
como had set a standard for Carrara rule. The Carrara must be mindful
of the social tensions between nobility and commoner. They should
craft domestic policies characterized by beneficence toward the com-
moners. Nor did their standing give them a license to act as they
wished. The commoner was right to denounce the nobility for that atti-
tude. The governing elite must never subject persons through fear but
conciliate them through benevolence.
Vergerio further noted that the Carrara had always accepted the role
of political leadership in the context of a public assembly. The title of
signore thereby acquired an element of legitimacy. The Carrara rulers
would maintain public support by a program that assured peace and re-
spect for the rights of all citizens. In domestic matters, the rulers should
act in keeping with the generosity that had brought them to power in
'^ See PPV, De principibus Carranensthus, RIS 16:122C-23A; and Kohl, "Government,"
206-7. The story constitutes a rare case of material that Vergerio did not derive from previ-
ous sources. On those sources and Vergerio's tendency to synthesize, see Cessi, "Prefa-
zione," 17.1.2:xxv-xxxiv; and Marchente, Ricerche, 11-37, esp. 35 for the originality of the
account of Giacomo Grande and the commoner.
112 CHAPTER 7
the first place. To illustrate his premise, Vergerio praised specific actions
undertaken by Ubertino da Carrara (d. 1345). Ubertino had worked to
complete the circuit of the walls around the city, he had erected the first
public clock tower, and he had assured an ample supply of grain during
a famine. He sought to assist the local economy by supporting the
guilds, especially that of the woolworkers. Finally, he gave support to
learning by sponsoring the study of twelve students [adolescentes) at the
University of Paris and by bringing Raniero Arsendi to lecture on law
at Padua's university. ^^ The Carrara despot must be a beneficent pa-
tron, filtering his mercy throughout the body politic.
When Vergerio suggested that the Carrara should foster peace and re-
spect for the rights of all citizens, he also meant that they must repress
the factionalism that had continually plagued communal government.
Carrara ascendancy had been tied to their opposition to the brutality of
the faction led by the Altichini and Ronchi families. In April of 1314, a
street battle erupted between supporters of the two factions. Once the
Carrara had won victory, they opened the jails to release Padua's politi-
cal prisoners. To dramatize the evils of factionalism, Vergerio vividly
described the revolting scene that greeted the liberators. The jail was a
living hell filled with the putrid odor of the rotting bodies of the dead
piled up everywhere. Those prisoners still alive were emaciated from
hunger and covered with wounds from torture. Some were chained,
while others had gags made of blocks of wood. Rather than guarantee
free expression, the republican system had led to its brutal repression. ^^
Four years later, a new outbreak of factionalism within the oligarchy
again threatened the city. The city's governors were divided over the
strategy needed to counter the threat posed by Cangrande della Scala,
the despot of Verona. The Carrara managed to parlay their popular sup-
port and their reputation for commitment to the common good into a
defeat of their Maccaruffi opponents. In 1318, Giacomo da Carrara was
given the title of captain and lord-general. Throughout the biographies,
Vergerio depicted Carrara rule at its best when the family leadership
managed to stand above petty factionalism and engender consensus
among Padua's more powerful citizens. His reading of politics also con-
tained realistic warnings. When factional fighting broke out between
'5 PPV, Deprincipibus Carrariensihus, RIS 16:166A, 168B, 170E-71B.
'^ See PPV, De principibus Carrariensihus, RIS 16:134C-D ("aliivero immisso faucibus
ligno, ne quid eloqui possent, etiam tunc aperto ore cemebantur hiantes"); and Hyde, Padua
in the Age of Dante, 263-67.
Disenchantment at Court 113
members of the elite, the common people simply sided with the victori-
ous faction. The crowd's instinct to back a winner meant that the Car-
rara must be vigilant to maintain their place as first among equals. ^^
For Vergerio, no political factor had proven more capricious than
popular support, and no form of factionalism had caused graver prob-
lems than a battle for supremacy within the Carrara family. Vergerio re-
corded that Giacomo Grande had warned his children on his deathbed
that only concord within the family would preserve the political pres-
tige {dignitas) that they had attained. Discord, on the other hand, would
corrupt or even destroy that prestige. His warning was not always
heeded. After Giacomo's death, Niccolo da Carrara unsuccessfully chal-
lenged Marsilio for leadership of the family and the state. The outbreak
of political violence coincided with a wave of petty extortion which idle
young men perpetrated against wealthy citizens of Padua. Vergerio jux-
taposed the forms of violence to imply that the adolescent behavior in
both instances sprang from a lust to dominate. When Vergerio dealt
with the assassination of Marsilietto Papafava da Carrara (d. 1345) by
Giacomo II and Giacomino, he covered the realpolitik of the assassins
with an ethical veneer. Vergerio felt that Marsilietto would inevitably
see Giacomo II as a threat to his position because Giacomo had the
moral probity which Marsilietto never attained. Giacomo II therefore
acted out of justifiable fear for his own safety rather than out of ambi-
tion. Vergerio also saw the assassination as a sound lesson in power poli-
tics: Julius Caesar had rightly argued that, if rights must be violated,
they should be violated for the sake of ruling. ^^
For Vergerio, no member of the Carrara line was more intriguing
than Ubertino da Carrara (d. 1345).^' As a young man, Ubertino had ex-
17 PPY ^ De principibus Carrariensibus, RIS 16:160E-61A: "Nam in contentione nobilium
vulgi favor in earn se partem inclinare solet, penes quam victoria certaminis [RIS: certa
minus] stetit."
'« PPV, De prtncipibus Carrariensthus, RIS 16:143C-44D, 162D-E, 174D-75E. Vergerio
illustrated the ways in which Giacomo II manifested his political acumen by consolidating
his control of Padua after the assassination. He arrested the members of Marsilietto's family
and imprisoned those members of the regime who had opposed him. He appointed new
podesta for the outlying towns, and he had the soldiers swear an oath of loyalty to himself.
In terms of largesse, he freed two hundred prisoners from prison and declared a general
amnesty, allowing the political exiles to return. So successful were his actions that the
government sponsored a palio on the anniversary of his accession. That race, in turn, helped
to maintain popular support for the regime. Later in his reign, Giacomo II had to confront
a plot led by the Da Lozzo brothers, in whom he had placed special trust. He handed the
conspirators over to the podesta to assure impartial justice and limited pimishment to the
leaders of the coup attempt. See ibid. 16:175E-76C, 177C-78B.
" PPV, De principibus Carrariensibus, RIS 16:158D-72C. Ubertino's change of heart was
114 CHAPTER 7
hibited the worst qualities of adolescence— lust and rage. Vergerio lacon-
ically noted that Ubertino had contracted a painful disease "caused by
overuse of his genital member," With the help of a friend, he had mur-
dered Guglielmo Dente, a member of a powerful noble family and a
rival for the love of a courtesan. Exiled for the crime, Ubertino threat-
ened to support Cangrande della Scala, Padua's worst enemy. The Dente
family, meanwhile, sought revenge by plotting to overthrow the Car-
rara. The plot erupted in a battle on Padua's streets, and the Dente were
eventually defeated. The family leader fled Padua, a mob sacked his
home, and Ubertino took advantage of the turmoil to return from exile.
He immediately sought revenge against Pollione Beccadelli, the podesta
who had ordered his punishment. Beccadelli was murdered by a mob
who supported Ubertino, and all public records that might incriminate
him were burned. With similar bravado, Ubertino managed to outma-
neuver Niccolo da Carrara and succeed Marsilio Grande as despot in
1338.
His initial actions as a ruler indicated that he had no intention of
moderating his ruthless ways. Vergerio attributed Ubertino's success to
a skillful combination of forcefulness and cunning. In a campaign against
the Della Scala forces for control of Monselice, both sides distinguished
themselves for cruelty. While the Della Scala commander ordered Car-
rara prisoners hanged from the walls of the city in full view of the be-
sieging army, Ubertino summarily executed his prisoners and had his
soldiers disfigure the women fleeing the siege and then return them to
the city. After Ubertino finally tricked Fiorello da Lucca into surrender-
ing the citadel, he executed Fiorello and punished his soldiers by cutting
off an ear. However, the victory at Monselice signaled a fundamental
change in Ubertino's approach to governance. He forbade the use of
force under any circumstances and enjoined his supporters against exact-
ing revenge for injury. Vergerio felt that Ubertino had begun to move
beyond the license of adolescence. Yet he remained a leader who prefer-
red to be feared rather than loved. Though he enriched the physical and
cultural life of the city, he pursued his enemies with vigor. A patrician
who denounced Ubertino in the Venetian Senate ended up being
drugged, kidnapped, and ferried to Padua, where he was forced into a
humiliating apology. On his deathbed, Ubertino told his confessor that
also noted by Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna; see his De regimine principum, Siena, Bibl.
Comunale degli Intronati, cod. G.X.33, fol. 146v.
Disenchantment at Court 115
he felt no remorse for any of his past actions, which had increased his
family's power. In fact, he was ready to do them all over again. To
prove his point, he then forced the confessor to absolve him.
Vergerio also paid close attention to the foreign policy of the Car-
rara, as his recounting of the war between the Delia Scala and Ubertino
da Carrara and the episode with the Venetian patrician attest. The Car-
rara had come to power during a dispute between noble factions as to
what policy to adopt before the threat of Cangrande della Scala (1291-
1329). During the lordship of Marsilio Grande (1328-1338), the family
had only succeeded in retaining a measure of control by surrendering
the city peacefully to Cangrande. For two reasons, Vergerio felt that
Marsilio had made a shrewd decision. First, Marsilio knew that his uncle
Giacomo had been forced to abdicate his office of dominus generalis
under threat from Paduan exiles who had sided with Cangrande. Second-
ly, given the difference in strength between Padua and Verona, it would
have been suicidal to attempt to retain absolute control. Better to accept
a role as Cangrande 's vicar for the city rather than lose everything in a
hopeless defense of liberty.^°
Further lessons garnered from the years of Marsilio's rule reinforce
the sense that Della Scala Verona functioned for Vergerio as a regional
power analogous to Venice at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Once allied with the Della Scala, Marsilio discharged sensitive duties for
them. For example, Marsilio hanged the German mercenaries who had
violated his orders not to plunder the countryside. The insubordinate
conduct of the Germans proved how unreliable mercenary troops were.
Subsequently, Marsilio had been caught in the middle of Della Scala
gambits to increase their territorial control well beyond the Veneto.
Mastino della Scala (1308-1351) and his brother Alberto (1306-1352) had
allied Verona with Florence because both city-states wished to attack the
Rossi family, who controlled Parma and Lucca. If the alliance succeeded
militarily, then each member would gain territory. However, after cap-
turing Parma in 1335 with the aid of Florentine troops, the Della Scala
betrayed the Florentines by attempting to force Lucca to surrender to
Verona. Vergerio then demonstrated that the "insatiable cupidity" [insa-
tiabilis humana cupiditas) of the Della Scala proved self-destructive. In
^ See PPV, De principihus Carrariensibus, RIS 16:123B, 125D-26E (126D: "Ceterum vir
prudens non quod vulgo placeret sed quod utilitati publicae conduceret advertebat. Summa
igitur vi atque omni studio curabat, ut quae inita pax fuerat servaretur"); and Hyde, Padua
in the Age of Dante, Kid-ll.
116 CHAPTER 7
anger, Florence made a secret alliance with Venice, and the republican
powers aided Marsilio in freeing himself from Delia Scala overlordship.
In a victory speech, as reconstructed by Vergerio, Marsilio thanked the
legates of Florence and Venice for their assistance and unabashedly
linked Padua's liberty to his despotism.^^ Padua found herself on a chess-
board on which more powerful pieces maneuvered.
Consequently, Vergerio portrayed Giacomo II (d. 1350) as an adept
practitioner of a foreign policy guided by the best interests of the
Paduan people. Giacomo had offered Padua a moment to prosper by
signing peace accords with the neighboring rulers. He had personally
visited Mastino della Scala to negotiate an accord with Verona and had
also reached an agreement with Obizzo d'Este in Ferrara. He especially
concerned himself to maintain a harmonious relationship with Venice
after he and his descendants were named honorary citizens of the repub-
lic in January of 1346. Giacomo made Padua an active supporter of
Venetian foreign policy by providing troops for Venetian campaigns, in-
cluding the one in September of 1348 to quell a revolt in Capodistria.
Moreover, he had come to the rescue of the Venetian government dur-
ing a famine by supplying needed grain.^^ Vergerio seems to have intend-
ed a clear message for Francesco Novello. He should seek peace in order
to assure stability for Padua. He should reckon honestly with the re-
gion's powers: better to surrender a measure of autonomy in order to
save the despotism. He should not break an alliance, nor could he rely
Dn foreign mercenaries for help were he to antagonize his powerful
neighbor. Moreover, he should beware lest his aggressive foreign policy
lead to divisions within the ruling elite and within his own family.^
Vergerio's series of biographies ended abruptly with Giacomo II. He
never discussed the reigns of Francesco il Vecchio or Francesco Novello,
nor did his veiled warnings have the desired effect of saving the Carrara.
The Venetian victory spared him further research. However, the biogra-
^' See PPV, De principibus Carrariensibus, RIS 16:151C, 152E-53D, 154D-57B (esp.
156E-57A: "Nunc vero demum, frustratis illorum molitionibus urbeque auxilio Dei / et
Venetorum Florentinorumque cura ac studio liberata, denuo se principem electum, tamquam
non videretur urbi quaesita vera libertas nisi et ipse princeps esset libertatis"); and Gian
Maria Varanini, "Delia Scala, Mastino," DBI 37:445-48.
^ See PPV, De principibus Carrariensibus, RIS 16:176C-77C; and M. Chiara Ganguzza
Billanovich, "Carrara, Giacomo da," DBI 20:674.
^' In March of 1405, Francesco Novello's brother Giacomo (ca. 1350-1405) reached an
accord with Venice to betray Padua. See M. Chiara Ganguzza Billanovich, "Carrara, Fran-
cesco da, il Novello," DBI 20:659-60; and Ganguzza Billanovich, "Carrara, Giacomo da,"
ibid. 20:676.
Disenchantment at Court 117
phies gave Vergerio a chance to reflect in more systematic fashion on
the strengths and weaknesses of monarchical government. In theory,
Vergerio thought that monarchy was the best form of government.
Even so, he placed strict conditions on what he meant by monarchy.
Though the treatise bears a subtitle "On the Best Principate," the work
actually focuses upon the best prince. Throughout, Vergerio emphasized
the character of the ruler, and not the structure of government, as the
determining factor in successful politics. As the Carrara dynasty slowly
expired, Vergerio became more pessimistic about the possibility of real-
izing his political ideals.^*
The monarchical government that Vergerio proposed as an ideal
must be governed by a morally upright ruler. The city-state which he
administers should be peacefully settled through written laws, to which
the ruler freely subjects himself. Ideally, that state would enjoy social
harmony among its various classes and would arrange its relations with
other states in order to live in a world at peace. Only in that case would
the analogy with divine rulership of the universe be fully realized.
Those theoretical principles clashed with historical evidence. When Ver-
gerio examined the first two dynasties of the Roman Empire, he found
more evil rulers (the young Octavian, the elder Tiberius, Caligula, Nero,
and Domitian) than those he might fairly characterize as upright (the el-
der Octavian, the young Titus, and Vespasian when he controlled his
avarice). The worst situation ensued when a ruler gave free rein to his li-
bidinous appetites and tyrannized weaker subjects.^^
If monarchy in its historical manifestations had proven so disappoint-
ing, then why not advocate the rule of many? Vergerio claimed that,
when improperly ordered, republics represented the worst evil; even
when peacefully settled, republics still accomplished little good. By im-
properly ordered, he meant a situation in which magistracies were open
to all citizens. Such a situation rendered the state sordid, imprudent, and
weak. If magistracies were restricted to the worthy, then the state was
afflicted by class struggle between patricians and plebeians. The constant
^^ See Baron, Crisis, rev. ed., 129-34; Robey, "Republicanism," 17-22; David Robey and
John Law, "The Venetian Myth and the De republica veneta of Pier Paolo Vergerio," Rina-
scimento, n.s., 15 (1975): 33-35; and Quentin Skinner, The Renaissance, vol. 1 of The Founda-
tions of Modem Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 124.
^ PPV, De monarchia, EpisL, 447-48: "Ex adverso autem nihil esse deterius potest quam
cum in unius perditi hominis libidine collata sunt capita multorum, et pemiciosae voluntati
iuncta est facultas nocendi. . . . Sub hoc esse tuta cuiusquam salus poterat, defensa pudicitia,
aut securae cuiusquam fortunae?"
118 CHAPTER 7
State of violence inevitably led the citizens of an ordered republic to
turn to rule by one person. The history of an Italian commune like
Padua proved the point for Vergerio. Couldn't a code of just laws re-
press civic violence in a republic? Vergerio used two metaphors to ex-
press his diffidence toward the efficacy of rule by law. Much like a
spider web, laws tend to catch only the weak. Morever, much like
parchment, laws may be stretched or shrunk according to the will of
judges. Laws generally served the interests of the dominant class. Verge-
rio thought that a state needed a ruler above the laws who might ensure
that no one acted with impunity in violating basic rights or written
statutes.^^
Vergerio then offered his revised version of a famous account of the
origins of political civilization, an account that Isocrates conceived and
Cicero popularized. Vergerio's version comprised a skeletal outline for
an anthropology of human nature, premised upon the principle that hu-
man beings by nature were more prone to evil than good. From a savage
state in the wilderness, human beings ultimately evolved toward forms
of urban civilization under the leadership of a natural aristocracy. Due
to their virtue, those aristocrats were recognized as "leading citizens"
(principes) within the nascent political community. Over time, however,
the aristocracy shifted the criterion for membership from one's worth
as a person to one's line of birth. According to Vergerio, the dynastic
principle diluted the effectiveness of the governing elite. Nothing guar-
anteed that the child of a prince would achieve his father's greatness.
The child was an unproven talent.
That anthropological pattern had revealed itself in the history of the
Italian city-states of Vergerio's era. Those city-states had turned to des-
pots to end the brutish violence caused by factions within the commune.
To restore a humane order, the cities had chosen despots who had
proven their worth in war and civic affairs. By and large, most of the
original despots had successfully renewed social concord by crushing fac-
tionalism. However, problems soon arose when authority passed from
the father to the son. Raised within the permissive environment of the
court, the children often defamed themselves and their family by their
cruelty and lust.^'^ History offered only the slightest hope for a change
^^ Ibid., 448-49.
^ Ibid., 449-50: "Ac simili quidem mcxlo fieri solet, ut, cum quis virtute ac gloria mili-
tari magnum aliquando regnum adeptus est, aut, moderatione prudentiaque praestans, ad tol-
lendas seditiones tumultusque ab suis civibus in principem electus est, ille pruVdenter, sin-
Disenchantment at Court 119
of heart on the part of spoiled children. The elder Octavian, once estab-
lished as emperor of Rome, had quit the violent ways of his adolescence.
Likewise, Vergerio recalled his study of Ubertino da Carrara, in whom
public responsibility had reawakened a modicum of conscience.^*
The complex character of the elder Ubertino da Carrara proved to
Vergerio the need for an educational program like the one that he had
drafted for the younger Ubertino da Carrara. Proper training of the ado-
lescent children of a prince might compensate for the inherent weakness
of the dynastic system. Yet Vergerio 's combined efforts in educational
theory {De ingenuis morihus), history {De principihus Carrariensibus), and
political theory {De monarchia) did not alter the mistaken policies of the
Carrara dynasty. Aware of the precarious state of Carrara rule, Vergerio
took steps to protect himself if he had to leave Padua. He established
contact with Carlo Zeno, the famous Venetian admiral, after Zeno had
married a widow who was the mother of two of Vergerio's distant
cousins. When Zeno defeated the fleet of the redoubtable Marechal Bou-
cicault in the autunm of 1403, Vergerio celebrated his victory in a pan-
egyrical letter. Ever in search of patronage, Vergerio also recruited Zeno
to testify to his respect for Venice. When Padua and Venice went to
war, Vergerio found himself in the delicate position of a former resident
of the Venetian Empire who now lived within the orbit of a court in
open conflict with Venice.^
Probably in those same years, Vergerio tried to have a friend inter-
cede for him at the court of Ladislas of Naples. Vergerio listed his cre-
dentials in the arts, in medicine, and in civil and canon law, a combina-
cere, sobrie publicam rem administret; filii vero, ut sunt plerumque parentibus absimiles,
favore potentiaque parentum praesuntes succedant, harumque artium ignari omni crudelita-
tis ac libidinis scelere se contaminent."
^ Ibid., 450: "Audivimus de Ubertino nuper, qui, cum antea complices multos ac mini-
stros scelerum haberet, dominus factus seorsum eos evocavit atque admonuit ut ab his absti-
nerent: hactenus se in omnem rem comitem, posthac aequum principem praestiturum; de
his, quae antea gesta essent, nuUam se rationem habiturum; in futurum, ne quid admitterent,
providerent. Eos igitur, qui ab solitis vitiis abstinere non possent, male habuit; ceteros, ut
dignum aequumque fuit, coluit." The parallel passage in the lives {RIS 16:164A-B) reads
"Convocatis enim amicis ac ministris his, qui omnis suae vitae rerumque omnium conscii
et comites fuerant, 'Hactenus,' inquit, 'ita in hac urbe, ut in re aliena versati sumus; nunc
nostram [RIS: nostrum] decet ut tueamur. Vi quicquam, aut per iniuriam fieri veto. Esto ius
aequum omnibus: quod quis vestrum exoptat sibi praecipuum dari vel fieri, a me id petat;
si secus egerit, minime placabilem sibi experietur Ubertinum. Quoque mihi carior quisque
est, CO sibi magis prospicere iubeo.' "
^ EpisL, 251-53, 269-73. On Zeno's victory, see also Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Mari-
time Republic (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1973), 199-200.
120 CHAPTER 7
tion of studies that he feh made him unique among scholars. Lest there
be any doubt concerning his academic credentials, he again passed public
examinations and graduated from the University of Padua in early 1405.
He could now go elsewhere with documentary proof of his achieve-
ments.'° During his last years in Padua, Vergerio strengthened his cre-
dentials in ways attractive to the clerical elite. He had almost certainly
become a cleric before he accepted a benefice in 1404. Moreover, he at-
tended the lectures of Francesco Zabarella on canon law at the Univer-
sity of Padua, becoming a doctor in both branches of jurisprudence.^^
As the Carrara regime collapsed and no other political opportunity pre-
sented itself, Vergerio explored the patronage network of the Church.
For years, in public panegyrics, Vergerio had offered Saint Jerome as a
exemplar of a humanist scholar who put his talents at the service of be-
lievers.
'° Epist., 125 n. 1, 274-75; and Leonardo Smith, "Note cronologiche vergeriane, III-V,"
Archivto veneto, ser. 5, 4 (1928): 92-96.
'' Smith, Epist., xxiv, 274 n. 2; and Annalisa Belloni, Pro/essori giuristi a Padova nel
secolo XV: Profili bio-bihliografici e cattedre, lus Commune: Studien zur europaischen
Rechtsgeschichte 28 (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann, 1986), 89-90, 204-208.
CHAPTER 8
Humanism's Patron Saint
Throughout the last decade of the fourteenth century and into the
fifteenth, Pierpaolo Vergerio fulfilled to the best of his ability the
vow he had made to preach a sermon in honor of Jerome on the saint's
feast day (30 September). When Vergerio was unable to deliver a public
sermon, he substituted a letter in praise of Jerome, which he sent to
family members or intimate friends.^ Jerome's feast should never pass
without due acknowledgment. Of the ten sermons that survive, only
three may be assigned precise dates. Two of the three were delivered
after Vergerio had left Padua to join the Papal Court in 1405. They are
best treated later in the context of his activities at the court. An Oxford
manuscript of Vergerio's works indicates that he also preached a sermon
at Padua in 1392. It has not been possible to determine the precise
sequence of the other seven sermons. Nevertheless, the sermons develop
consistent themes which reflect Vergerio's deepening appreciation that
Jerome might well serve as a patron for humanist studies without
detracting from his further achievements as a Christian confessor. The
sermons therefore lend themselves to a synchronic treatment at this
juncture in Vergerio's career.^
' Epist., 91-93, 184-87. For the vow, see ibid., 93, and Sermo 5: "decrevi singulo anno
dum vixero laudes Hieronymi et praeclara merita in conventu optimorum recensere."
^ See Leonardo Smith, Epist., 91-93 n. 1; and David Robey, "P. P. Vergerio the Elder:
Republicanism and Civic Values in the Work of an Early Italian Humanist," Past and
Present, no. 58 (February 1973): 27-28, 36-37. Robey, 27, argued on the basis of the imma-
turity of the style and the hesitant approach to the subject matter that the 1392 oration was
"the earliest extant and possibly the first in the series." In that sermon, however, Vergerio
spoke of "his frequent citation" of a famous passage from one of Jerome's letters ("suo
verbo quod crebro a me cum fit sermo de Hieronymo repetitum est . . ."). In a letter that
122 CHAPTER 8
In addition to the sermon at Padua, Vergerio also delivered two
sermons in the general vicinity of his hometown of Capodistria. When
he had no better alternative, he spent the summer recess at home and
then returned to Padua for the beginning of the academic year in
mid-October. Such a schedule meant that he might well be in Capodis-
tria for Jerome's feast. Though Vergerio knew that Jerome's birthplace
of Stridon had once existed in that area of the Roman Empire, he
publicly stated his skepticism that Stridon should be identified with
Sdregna in the diocese of Capodistria. Given the similarities in orthogra-
phy and pronunciation, popular imagination, always an unreliable
source for Vergerio, had facilely identified the places. Yet Sdregna's
location poorly matched Jerome's description of "a fortified town at the
border between Dalmatia and Pannonia." Vergerio rebelled against any
attempt to reduce Jerome to a purely local, ethnic hero. Jerome had
distinguished himself as a champion of Latin culture, a learned citizen of
a world empire.^ Any attempt to diminish that status represented a
myopic provincialism which made light of Jerome's willingness to
move. Vergerio felt that Jerome's example had relevance for a broad
range of audiences.
To his credit, Vergerio succeeded in taking his message about Jerome
into a variety of settings: churches, public squares, and monasteries. In
keeping with classical principles for rhetoric, Vergerio tailored his
message to the specific audience at hand. The character of that audience
helps to explain the message that Vergerio emphasized. On at least three
was probably written in 1394, or 1395 at the latest, Vergerio indicated that he had already
given three sermons on Jerome {Epist., 91-93). Therefore, he began to preach the sermons
around the time that he had returned to Padua in 1391.
^ Sermo 6: "Monstratur enim in proximo Sdregna, rus tenue ac paucis incolis habitatum,
unde lumen hoc ortum memorant quod longe lateque fidem Christianam illustravit. Credi-
bilem rem efficit vulgaris opinio a maioribus quasi per manus tradita et nominis corrupti,
ut dicunt, similitude quaedam, tametsi cetera parum conveniant. Nam ex oppido Stridonis
historiae natum perhibent quod olim Dalmatiae Pannoniaeque confinia tenuit et a Gothis
eversum est [Hieronymus De viris illustribus 135, PL 23:755]." See further Epist., 145-46:
"quem Qerome] non procul a patriae meae finibus humilis locus sed hoc uno plurimis am-
plissimis urbibus / praestans edidit." Sermo 3 was also delivered before individuals whom
Vergerio characterized as his fellow citizens living near Jerome's presumed place of birth.
On Stridon, see Germain Morin, "La patrie de saint Jerome; le missorium d'Exsuperius:
deux retractions necesszWes," Revue Benedictin 38 (1926): 217-18; J. N. D. KeWy, Jerome: His
Life, Writings, and Controversies (New York et al.: Harper & Row, 1975), 3-5; and Giuseppe
Cuscito, Cristianesimo antico ad Aquileia e in Istria, Fonti e studi per la storia della Venezia
Giulia: Studi, n.s., 3 (Trieste: Deputazione di storia patria per la Venezia Giulia, 1977), 233-
38. Cuscito argues that neither the Italian Sdregna/Stregna nor the Slavic Zrenj/Zrinj can de-
rive from the Latin Strido.
Humanism's Patron Saint 123
occasions, Vergerio preached before an assembly of monks; once he
arranged the ceremony in the early evening because at that hour the
monks were free from work and from recitation of the Divine Office/
To monks, Vergerio often presented a Jerome who was a champion
among ascetics. Furthermore, Vergerio paid close attention to the
general reaction of his varied listeners, acknowledging widespread
disdain among them for his consciously innovative methods. He dis-
cerned three distinct groups within the large crowds he usually ad-
dressed. The illiterate common people came primarily for the spectacle
and only took notice of unusual words or gestures. A larger group,
which Vergerio estimated to comprise the majority, focused upon
matters of style, especially decorum. Ever the doctrinaire guardians of
orthodox preaching, they debated whether Vergerio uttered an inappro-
priate phrase or sentence. Vergerio also felt that a few of his listeners
had actually come with an open mind and learned from what he had to
say.^ Cognizant of the challenge, Vergerio approached his panegyrics as
an educational activity. Through his praise of select activities of Jerome,
he wished to enhance the moral sensibilities of his listeners; he knew full
well that his style of preaching would be criticized by many. Vergerio
compounded the problem by lionizing controversial aspects of Jerome's
life.
-From the beginning of the fourteenth century, Jerome had become
the object of a popular cult in Italy .^ In the first decades of the century,
an enterprising forger, perhaps a Dominican friar associated with the
* Sermons 1, 5, and 10 were certainly delivered to monastic audiences. In Sermo 5, Ver-
gerio observes: "Nunc autem vesperi a me evocati convenistis. . . ." Groups of Hieronymites
lived in Padua and in Venice already in the last decade of the fourteenth century; see Daniel
Russo, Saint Jerome en Italie: Etude d'iconographie et de spiritualite. Images a I'Appui 2 (Paris:
Decouverte, and Rome: Ecole fran^aise, 1987), 130-39. In 1406, while Vergerio worked at
the Papal Court, Pope Innocent VII issued a bull approving the Hermits of Saint Jerome of
Fiesole; see Eugene Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore and London: Johns
Hopkins Univ. Press, 1985), 70.
* Epist., 93: "Solebam ad populum dicere, quo semper ingens de illius rebus laudibusque
auditura turba veniebat; multi praeterea indocti qui nudas voces gestusque notarent, plurimi
qui dicendi tantum genus adverterent arguerentque, si quid ineptius excidisset, aliqui fortasse,
si mihi liceat, qui ediscerent."
' See Millard Meiss, "Scholarship and Penitence in the Early Renaissance: The Image of
St. Jerome," in The Painter's Choice: Problems in the Interpretation of Renaissance Art (New
York: Harper & Row, 1976), 189-97; Kict, Jerome in the Renaissance, 49-83; Russo, Saint
Jerome, 37-65, 117-48; and John Henderson, "Penitence and the Laity in Fifteenth-Century
Florence," in Timothy Verdon and John Henderson, eds., Christianity and the Renaissance:
Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1990),
229^9.
124 CHAPTER 8
circle of canons at Saint Mary Major in Rome, had drafted three letters
which he attributed to contemporaries of Jerome. The letters sought to
fill gaps in Jerome's biography, narrating the holiness of his death and
the miracles that he had performed before and after that death. With
their tales of great wonders, the letters aroused strong emotions in the
popular imagination. By midcentury, Giovanni d' Andrea (loannes
Andreae), a professor of canon law at the University of Bologna, had
given the cult a further injection of vitality. Dismayed by the lack of
reverence for Jerome in Italy and stirred by the precedent of the forged
letters, Giovanni d'Andrea composed a work entitled the Hieronymia-
nuSy the work included biographical material on Jerome and extensive
recommendations for fostering his cult. Giovanni urged Italians to show
their devotion by naming their children for Jerome or by building
churches in his honor. The second half of the fourteenth century
witnessed the institutionalization of this flowering cult. Five new
congregations of vowed religious men were founded in Italy and in
Spain, all of them dedicated to Jerome. Despite differences in emphasis,
the spirituality of the Hieronymite congregations had several common
characteristics. The congregations focused largely upon penitential
exercises; their founders were often merchants who had spurned a life of
profiteering to embrace an austere form of hermetic asceticism. Only
after attracting followers did that initial impulse to the life of a hermit
evolve toward a more communal form of religious life. In addition, the
members of the Hieronymite orders lived a life of rigorous poverty and
often rejected priesthood. Consistent with their ascetic impulse, the
Hieronymites were hostile toward education and secular culture.
Thus, the first wave of the Renaissance cult of Jerome cherished the
saint primarily as a wonder-worker and an ascetic. The revival of
devotion to Jerome in Western Europe coincided with the advance of
the Turks in the eastern Mediterranean. After the last stronghold of the
Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had fallen to the Turks in 1291, a legend
began to circulate regarding the transfer of Jerome's relics from the
Holy Land to the Church of Saint Mary Major in Rome. Inspired by
the purported presence of Jerome in Rome, the aforementioned forger
drafted accounts of the miracles that Jerome had performed for centuries
on behalf of his devotees. Freed from the technical language of Scholas-
tic theology, those accounts taught principles of Catholic doctrine to a
popular audience. For example, one of Jerome's miracles served to
demonstrate the existence of purgatory. Tapping currents of spirituality
already fostered by the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hieronymite congrega-
Humanism's Patron Saint 125
tions married self-abnegation to a rigorous practice of poverty. Howev-
er, the Hieronymites placed those practices under the patronage of
Jerome, a patristic hero canonized by the Church. Unlike the Spiritual
Franciscans, then, the Hieronymites ingratiated themselves to church
authorities and quickly received official approval. The ascetic emphasis
of their cult took visual form as well. Images of the penitent Jerome
who beat his breast while praying in the wilderness replaced the icono-
graphic tradition of Jerome as a learned doctor. Jerome now meditated
on the cross and on the impurities of his soul, far removed from his
study filled with books.
In keeping with his personal experience and his humanist studies,
Vergerio offered his era a richer picture of Jerome. Vergerio closely
associated the saint with the formative experiences of his childhood. In
reponse to divine largesse, Vergerio's family offered a banquet on his
feast for the local poor and for members of the extended family. Jerome
handsomely repaid the family's devotion by protecting them during the
exile caused by the War of Chioggia.^ Nourished in an environment
that saw the family as honored clients of a powerful heavenly patron,
Vergerio committed himself to a public act of devotion for the rest of
his life. His sermons and letters in praise of Jerome were the fruit of
that commitment. Vergerio sought to foster a broader cult of Jerome
which would make him the patron saint of humanist studies.* No
enemy of learning, Vergerio's Jerome rather testified to the value of
humanist learning for scriptural exegesis and for an authentically catho-
lic piety. In keeping with recent traditions, Vergerio's Jerome also
exemplified the value of asceticism. But, in Vergerio's depiction, that
asceticism did not spring from a merchant's feelings of guilt and a
concomitant need to atone for profiteering. It sprang rather from
Vergerio's concern for interior freedom, which acquired authentic
expression when one rejected the enslaving urges toward lust and
self-aggrandizement. Vergerio used his portrait of Jerome to support his
convictions about the value of rhetorical education based upon classical
standards and to advance certain proposals for church reform. All of
' See Sermo 5 and Epist., 186-87. The relevant passages are translated and discussed at
greater length in chapter 1 above.
* John M. McManamon, "Innovation in Early Humanist Rhetoric: The Oratory of Pier
Paolo Vergerio the Elder," Rinascimento, n.s., 22 (1982): 24-27; and McManamon, "Pier
Paolo Vergerio (the Elder) and the Beginnings of the Hiunanist Cult of Jerome," The Catho-
lic Historical Review 71 (1985): 356-63.
126 CHAPTER 8
those thoughts deepened from 1390 to 1405, as he continued to pursue
his various degree studies and he personally came to know the heart of
church government in Rome.
Vergerio praised Jerome for his knowledge of letters (peritia litter-
arum); that education made it possible for him to serve the Church in
valuable ways. By letters, Vergerio meant proficiency first of all in the
Latin language, and then in Greek and Hebrew. His Hnguistic ability
made him an astute philologist. Vergerio also meant eloquence, in which
Jerome attained the standard of excellence set centuries earlier by
Cicero.^ Nor did Vergerio evade the controversial character of Jerome's
humanist learning. On one occasion prior to his permanent move to the
Papal Court in 1405 and repeatedly thereafter, Vergerio discussed
Jerome's famous "dream." In a widely circulated letter, Jerome had
described an ecstatic experience during which he felt himself lifted up to
heaven. There, despite pleas of innocence, Jerome found himself con-
demned before the heavenly tribunal as a Ciceronian. ^° Vergerio inter-
preted the dream as a warning to Jerome that he change his focus of
study. Humanist learning should provide the skills necessary to under-
take serious philological study of sacred letters. Vergerio suggested that
virtually all of Jerome's exegetical works came after that frightening
experience. He could never have accomplished his scriptural studies,
however, without thorough grounding in the three relevant languages,
nor did he cease to study pagan literature. ^^
' Sermo 5: "ipsum medius fidius Ciceronem mihi legere videor cum libros Hieronymi
lego." In Sermo 3, Vergerio listed all of the subjects that Jerome had mastered: the three bib-
lical languages, ecclesiastical and secular history, poetry, science {notitia rerum), and
eloquence, in which he equaled the accomplishments of Cicero.
'° Hieronymus, Ep. 22.30 {CSEL 54:189-91). On the dream and its import for Jerome,
see Arthur Stanley Pease, "The Attitude of Jerome towards Pagan Literature," Transactions
and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 50 (1919): 150-67; Edwin A. Quain,
"St. Jerome as a Humanist," in Francis X. Murphy, ed.,^ Monument to Saint Jerome: Essays
on Some Aspects of His Life, Works and Influence (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952), 201-32;
Paul Antin, "Autour du songe de S. Jerome," in Recueil sur saint Jerome, Collection
Latomus 95 (Brussels: Latomus, 1968), 71-75; and Kelly, Jerome, 41-44. For humanist
attempts to deal with the dream's legacy, see Kice, Jerome in the Renaissance, 3-7, 84-115;
McManamon, "Beginnings," 363-71; and Anna Morisi Guerra, "La leggenda di San
Girolamo: Temi e problemi tra Umanesimo e Controriforma," Clio 23 (1987): 12-17.
" Sermo 3: "Posthac autem, ut ipse asserit, codices gentilium legit, sed tanto studio divi-
na tractavit quanto ilia ante non legerat, unde aut totum aut certe partem maximam suorum
librorum postquam id evenit edidit. In quibus tamen tantum est peregrinae historiae, tantum
gentilium fabularum extemaeque disciplinae, omnia ad fidei usum accommodata ut nihil
aliud dies ac noctes egisse quam ut ilia conquirat videri possit. Sed et de fide tot tantaque
praescripsit ut nusquam ei vacasse libros gentilium legere facile credi queat." If Vergerio's ser-
mon is correctly transmitted, then Vergerio revised Jerome's accovmt in order to favor hu-
Humanism's Patron Saint 127
Ciceronian eloquence also supplied Jerome with a set of values
worthy of his scholarly vocation. According to Vergerio, Jerome had
consistently questioned himself about the relevance [utilitas) of his
scholarly activities. Jerome could never be satisfied merely with the
personal enjoyment {otium, voluptas) that his studies engendered. ^^ He
had undertaken vast scholarly projects such as the revision of the
Vulgate translation in order to assist people in performing a variety of
activities. For Vergerio, this was the supreme value of Jerome's scholar-
ship: no one had ever written anything more essential to the life of the
believing community. Secondly, Jerome proved to be a scholar in the
Ciceronian mold because he had safeguarded the persuasive power of his
ethos throughout his life. Vergerio fused the title of Christian doctor
with the Roman ideal of the orator, an upright man skilled in public
persuasion. "He was a doctor not only in word but in example and was
no less distinguished by his life than he was by his language. That is the
best type of learning, in which one confirms by the example of his life
what he has publicly advocated that all should do."^^
Jerome was victorious in the greatest of life's, battles: he subjected
himself to the dictates of an informed conscience. Three times Jerome
gave dramatic proof of the degree of interior freedom that he had
achieved. First, when all thought that he would be chosen as the next
pope, Jerome left the city of Rome.^^ He overcame the temptation to
grasp supreme power in the Church and offered a noble example of
indifference. By leaving Rome altogether, he also stymied those jealous
Roman clerics who had intrigued to undermine his influence at the
Papal Court. Secondly, Jerome went to study under Gregory of Nazian-
zus at a moment in his career when he was considered one of the most
manist studies. In the Comm. in Epist. ad Galatas {PL 26:427), Jerome claimed that he had
not read any of the secular writers for fifteen years after the dream. One cannot categorical-
ly exclude the possibilities that Vergerio cited the source from memory or that a scribe
made an error.
'^ Sermo 4: "Nee fuit, ut in plerisque, otiosa in hoc homine tanta doctrina." Sermo 7:
"Alii vero doctores peritissimi, soUemnissimi, et fidei nostrae lumina, qui, ne ulla pars vitae
suae inutilis nobis esset, die ac nocte, negotio et quiete, scribendo praedicandoque nobis pro-
fuerunt."
'^ Epist., 184-85: "Doctor non solum verbo sed exemplo, nee minus vita clarus quam
sermone. Illud enim est optimum doctrinae genus, ut, quod ore quis faciendum monet, vita
exemploque suo comprobet." See also Sermo 3: "Non solum enim verbo et scriptis sed re
et exemplo docuit. ..."
'* Jerome is the source for the assertion that almost everyone considered him worthy of
the highest church office; see Ep. 45.3 {CSEL 54:325).
128 CHAPTER 8
learned scholars of the day. Consistent with the ideals of Socratic
philosophy, Jerome always remained aware of the limits of his knowl-
edge. Finally, during his time as a hermit in the Syrian desert, Jerome
suffered intense temptations to abandon his ascetic ways and return to
the wild days of his adolescence.^^ Vergerio accurately noted that Je-
rome's spiritual struggles intensified after he had abandoned the civilized
world of the city. Those who simplistically saw such withdrawal as a
flight from life's challenges did not understand the movements of the
spiritual life.
Much like the Cicero whom Vergerio had imagined responding to
Petrarch, Jerome made his fundamental decisions without allowing
dogmas which overvalued the contemplative life to dictate his choices.
Above all, Jerome concerned himself with fidelity to the values that he
had advocated and with his usefulness to others. As Jerome had adapted
his actions to the needs of his day, Vergerio adapted his message to the
needs of his audience. When speaking before monks, Vergerio empha-
sized the importance of reform through observance of the rule. Too
many monks, in Vergerio's estimation, had surrendered to a spirit of
laxity and self-gratification. They should be inspired to change by the
example of Jerome's humility and self-abnegation. Jerome's biographies
of the desert fathers, replete with vivid descriptions of their austere lives,
reinforced that message. Though monks in Vergerio's day might not
reach the heroic levels of sanctity of those early hermits, they could
certainly imitate the desert fathers in charity and good works. By
renewing themselves, they might help monastic life to flourish once
again.
Vergerio also used the panegyrics to indicate other areas where the
Church had need of reform. He suggested that preaching had lost vigor
in his day because preachers concerned themselves solely with the
popularity they achieved from the pulpit. Their appeal to moral values
from on high suffered because they themselves led such dissolute lives.
Jerome had once reminded preachers that the faithful frequently ask
themselves why a preacher did not do what he himself had urged. ^^ In
'^ To describe those sufferings, Vergerio quoted eight different times a passage from Je-
rome's letter to Eustochium {Ep. 11.7, CSEL 54:152-54). On Jerome's adolescence, see Ferdi-
nand Cavallera, Saint Jerome: Sa vie et son oeuvre (Louvain and Paris, 1922), 2:72-75. Jerome
himself {Ep. 49.20) admitted that he was not a virgin.
'^ Epiit., 184-85: "In qua re parum curiosi mihi praedicatores nostri temporis videntur,
quibus omne in bene dicendo studium est, in bene faciendo nullum; quasi vero in fide de
eloquentia, non de ratione vitae contendatur, aut orationibus, non bonis / atque Sanctis
Humanism's Patron Saint 129
fact, the entire spiritual life of the Church languished due to the visible
moral failings of the clergy. UnUke the ascetic Jerome, contemporary
clerics were wealthy and well fed. Worse yet, they openly sought
advancement in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Jerome had left Rome when
his election as pope seemed guaranteed. In Vergerio's day, two rivals
claimed to be pope and refused to consider any resolution, which might
endanger their own standing. No one should be surprised, Vergerio
observed, that utterly unworthy men sit on the throne of Peter today.
The comforts of Rome and Avignon allured corrupt clergymen and fed
their ambitions. ^^
Vergerio highlighted the importance of Jerome's historical contribu-
tion by drawing an analogy between the development of the Church
and human development. Born in the age of the apostles and nourished
throughout its childhood by the witness of the martyrs, the Church had
by the fourth century reached the difficult stage of adolescence.^^ To
illustrate the challenges posed by that stage, Vergerio employed a
metaphor from agriculture which had precedents in the parables of the
Gospels. The seeds planted by apostolic preaching had sprouted into
shoots, but they were still tender in the fourth century. Their growth
was threatened by harmful plants. By a variety of methods, Jerome had
cleared the Lord's field of potential dangers. He taught those humble
enough to learn through the dignity of his language and the example of
his life. Moreover, he corrected the stubborn errors of heretics, and he
censured the unjust attacks of envious rival clerics. An abundantly
merciful God had sent his doctor, a new type of Christian hero, to
viris, caelum pateat. Qui ergo recte docet et iu vivit ut docet, vere ille doctor est; qui aliter,
mendax et se ipsum sententia sua condemnans." See also Hieronymus Ep. 52.7 {CSEL
54:426-27): "Non confundant opera sermonem tuum, ne, cum in ecclesia loqueris, ucitus
quilibet respondeat: 'cur ergo haec ipse non facis?' "
'' Sermo 1: "Ex quibus factimi est ut non tarn summo pontificatu, ad quern etiam
indigni pervenire posstmt, quam regno caelorum, quo nullus pertingit indignus, se dignissi-
mum redderet. ..."
" Sermo 3: "ille optimus caelestis agricola, quo possent bene nau semina salubriter adole-
seer, istos sibi ministros delegit qui et haereticorum zizania ex agro suo vellerent et teneram
segetem spinis tribulisque ac ceteris noxiis herbis plantisque purgarent." Sermo 5: "At certe
magis necessariimi neminem habuit ecclesia: talem siquidem turn primum adolescens tumque
primum oriens alumnum sibi expetebat, tarn solidum cui inniteretur cardinem, tam fortem
qui se tueretur patronum. Quern profecto non casu aliquo sed summa Dei providentia atque
aetemo consilio illi tempori datum existimandum est, ut esset qui teneram et invalidam
atque a multis adversariis impetitam ducatu, monitis, praesidioque suo protegeret." Sermo
10: "Cum enim in ilia quasi adolescentia fidei nostrae undique pullularent errores, qui um-
quam spinae teneram segetem suffocarent, opus fuit ut solicitum ac fortem colonum agro
suo Deus immitteret. . . ." The emphasis is mine.
130 CHAPTER 8
educate the Church at that critical moment in its development.
It was also characteristic of Vergerio's sermons to place little or no
emphasis on the miracles that Jerome had performed. By "passing over
those miracles in silence," Vergerio implicitly censured the tales of
wonder-working proffered by works such as the forged letters. They
pandered to the credulous instincts of the common people. Vergerio
offered a spirituality that emphasized the importance of learning for an
elite group of educators and scholars. Nevertheless, in one of the ser-
mons, he did describe a miracle that Jerome performed on behalf of two
non-Christian travelers whose curiosity had led them to set out for the
Holy Land in order to see the grave of Jerome. The two young men lost
their way and wandered into a forest, where a band of thieves spotted
them. Jerome intervened to protect the two travelers; he made them
appear to be a much larger group. The robbers retreated because they
thought they were outnumbered. After all involved had grasped the
nature of Jerome's miraculous intervention, the pagans were baptized
while the leader of the thieves became a monk. The miracle reflected
Vergerio's convictions in three important ways. First, Vergerio had not
forgotten the protection that Jerome offered to his family on the road
to Cividale del Friuli. Secondly, Vergerio always considered vision the
most significant and powerful of the human senses; he would easily
recall an instance when Jerome accomplished his miraculous purpose by
creating an optical illusion. Finally, of all of the miracles attributed to
Jerome, Vergerio chose one worked on behalf of two nonbelievers.
"Therefore, this glorious saint proved himself a ready benefactor toward
the pagans and criminals. How much the more will he be generous
toward Christians and especially Catholics who venerate his name.^"^'
In effect, Vergerio had dedicated himself to making Jerome a protec-
tor of the pagans in his own day, and he utilized the a fortiori logic
found in the preceding quotation as his preferred rhetorical means to
safeguard the legacy of classical culture. Such logic moves from a more
difficult case to one that is less difficult in order to establish the likeli-
hood of the latter. In Aristotle's terms, "if the harder of two things is
possible, so also is the other."^° Vergerio therefore argued that, if
" Sermo 7: "Sic igitur hie gloriosus sanctus in gentiles et nefarios homines tarn pronus
tamque beneficus extitit; quanto magis in Christianos et vere Catholicos, si nomen suum ve-
nerabuntur, existet?"
^° Aristotle Rhet. 2.19.2 (Loeb edition, Freese, trans., 267). Richard A. Lanhani,y4 Hand-
list of Rhetorical Terms: A Guide for Students of English Literature (Berkeley, Los Angeles,
Humanism 's Patron Saint 131
Jerome proved so generous to pagans (the more difficult), then how
much more generous will he be to Catholics (the less difficult). The
entire asssertion posits continuity between the two poles of action.
Vergerio therefore moved logically from worthy pagans to pious Chris-
tians; both deservedly benefit from Jerome's saintly patronage. In fact,
Vergerio also praised the pagans in his sermons because they had intuit-
ed proper human actions without the advantages that Christianity
offered to believers. That was especially true of the pagan practice of
panegyric. "In keeping with ancient custom, the representations of
distinguished men are displayed, their deeds are described, and their
benefactions are recalled in order that succeeding generations strive
through zealous emulation of virtue to follow in the path of those
whom they esteem. "^^ Vergerio even applauded the pious lives of
non-Christians in his own day in order to arouse compunction among
his Christian listeners, who should feel no monopoly on divine assis-
tance.
Vergerio thereby transformed Jerome from the enemy of humanist
learning to a proof of the value of those studies for the believing com-
munity. In the course of the fourteenth century, previous humanists had
had to deal with the figure of Jerome primarily because opponents of
humanism pointed to Jerome as a religious authority clearly hostile to
pagan learning. Already in 1315, the Dominican Giovannino da Man-
tova adduced Jerome's remark that "the verses of poets are the food of
demons" to chide Albertino Mussato of Padua for his dedication to
writing poetry. From Petrarch on, Jerome's dream and his condemna-
tion as a Ciceronian haunted the humanists.^ Petrarch himself empha-
sized that Jerome continued to study Cicero even after the vision.
However, Petrarch preferred the interiority of Augustine to Jerome's
more activist spirituality. Coluccio Salutati felt that the vision taught
one not to engage in exclusive or excessive study of classical works.
and London: Univ. of California Press, 1968), 108, offers the following illustration: "If you
want to prove A has acted in a cruel way at one time, show that at another he acted still
more cruelly."
^' Sermo 2: "Hinc veteri more proponuntur clarorum virorum imagines, describuntur
gesta, et benefacu memorantur ut aemulatione virtutis studiosa posteritas assequi quos
probat nitatur."
" See Berthold Louis Ullman, The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati, Medioevo e umanesi-
mo 4 (Padua: Antenore, 1963), 54, 61; Ronald G. Witt, "Coluccio Saluuti and the Concep-
tion of the Poeta Theologus in the Fourteenth Century," Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977):
540-41; and McManamon, "Beginnings," 363-68.
132 CHAPTER 8
Vergerio had grown up with a special devotion to Jerome, and he
deepened that devotion when he shifted his intellectual activities more
and more toward humanist studies. In contrast to the portrait of Jerome
as archenemy of pagan learning, Vergerio portrayed a Jerome who
argued for the importance of such studies, especially for a "sacred
philology. "■^^ He returned Jerome to the study, where he engaged in
scholarship useful for believers. In communicating his portrait of Jerome
as an exponent of humanist learning, Vergerio appropriately used a
humanist medium. He consciously changed the manner of preaching
common in his day. In the introduction to the sermon that he delivered
in Padua in 1392, Vergerio told his audience that he was omitting a
thematic verse from Scripture as the basis for his sermon. By so doing,
he need not structure the discourse as an explanation for the relevance
of the theme. Rather, he could concentrate on the life of Jerome. He
therefore used the rhetorical topics of a panegyrical oration as specified
in the classical handbooks. He became conversant with those topics in
1392 and 1393 when he wrote epideictic speeches for the Carrara court.
Vergerio claimed that he was doing what the most up-to-date preachers
[apud modemos) commonly did. In fact, scholars who have investigated
Renaissance preaching have found no earlier examples of sermons based
upon classical norms.^'*
In offering a synchronic treatment of the sermons, one risks focusing
exclusively on their innovative elements. Other aspects of the form and
the content demonstrate that Vergerio used discretion because he knew
that his innovative techniques might cause undue controversy. He did
eliminate a thematic verse and thereby changed the basic form of the
sermon. Yet, to conclude the panegyrics, he often used a prayer in the
traditional form of a doxology ("who lives and reigns as blessed for ever
^ Paul Oskar KnsttWtr, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, Michael Mooney, ed. (New
York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1979), 72.
^* See John W. O'Malley, Praise and Blame in Rerutissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine, and
Reform in the Sacred Orators of the Papal Court, c. 1450-1521, Duke Monographs in Medi-
eval and Renaissance Studies 3 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1979), 85-86; Kristeller,
Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, 248-49; and McManamon, "Beginnings," 369-71. The
outline for a thematic sermon on Jerome prepared by Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) provides
a distinct contemporary contrast. The Dominican preacher proposes Luke 1 1:36 for a theme
("a lamp gives you light with its rays") and suggests that one discuss in the second division
of the theme ("Lucerna fulgoris propter cognitionem veritatis") Jerome's "vapulationem
cum prius studeret in doctrina Ciceronis." For the outline, see Vincent Ferrer, O.P., Les Ser-
mons Panegyriques, H. D. Fages, O.P., ed., vol. 2 of Oeuvres de Saint Vincent Ferrier (Paris,
1909), 734. On Vincent's career as a preacher beginning in 1399, see Alvaro Huerga, "Vin-
cent Ferrer," Dictionnaire de Spiritualite (Paris: Beauchesne, 1994), 16:815-16.
Humanism's Patron Saint 133
and ever"). One sermon alludes to the farcical story that Jerome's
enemies in Rome attempted to destroy his reputation by leaving a
woman's dress near his bed.^^ The next morning the distinguished
cleric unwittingly slipped the dress on and appeared for morning
prayers. Vergerio continued to praise Jerome for his ascetic withdrawal
into the desert; the sermons do not supply a univocal endorsement of
the active life. That is not surprising, however, because no humanist
endorsed the active life to the exclusion of the contemplative. Vergerio
preferred the active life as the best way to utilize his humanist learn-
ing.^^ In one sermon, he even admitted a certain ambivalence about the
extent of his worldly activities. "What must a wretch like myself do?
Caught up in worldly affairs, I do not sufficiently fear the culpability of
my past sins nor the punishment of the judgment to come."^ While
Vergerio could probably not pass over in silence his own compunction
after he had just censured his monastic audience for worldliness, his
self-questioning is genuine. He had spent much of his adult life searching
for a powerful and wealthy patron who would offer him a post in
public service. In those same years, he had stressed in his panegyrics the
importance of detachment as exemplified by Jerome. Vergerio apparent-
ly sensed that he might compromise his own ethos, if he continued to
applaud Jerome's detachment while he avidly pursued a position of
influence.
Increasingly, Vergerio had forged the highly idealistic path of a
Christian spirituality imbued with the spirit of Ciceronian ethos. In a
letter from 1396, Vergerio claimed that human nature could reach no
more sublime achievement than a truly pure mind. For Vergerio, that
meant a mind devoted to God and endowed with a conscience that
^ Sermo 3: "Nam muliebri veste per fraudem contectum de incontinentia calumniati
sunt." See Sermo 2 for a typical doxology: "qui et vivit et regnat per infinita saecula benedi-
ctus." Sermons 1 and 2 have a doxology followed by a "tellos" explicit. For the Renaissance
use of the telos (Lztin finis) explicit, see Dieter Wuttke, "Telos als explicit," in Fritz Krafft
and Dieter Wuttke, eds.. Das Verhdltnis der Humanisten zum Buch, Kommission fiir Human-
ismusforschung, Mitteilung 4 (Boppard: H. Boldt, 1977), 50-52. Wuuke's earliest example
is a manuscript copied by Sozomeno da Pistoia in 1415, and none of his examples has the
spelling of the Vergerio manuscripts.
^ See Robey, "Republicanism," 28-31; and Paul Oskar Kristeller, "The Active and
Contemplative Life in Renaissance Humanism," in Brian Vickers, ed., Arbeit, Musse,
Meditation: Betrachtungen zur Vita activa und Vita contemplativa (Zurich: Verlag der
Vachvereine, 1985), 133-52.
^ Sermo 10: "Quod si ita est, quid mihi faciendum est misero? qui saeculo implicitus nee
praeteritorum culpam peccatorum nee futuri poenam iudicii metuo, sed errores impuniute
sua nutrio negligensque paenitentiae deterior in dies fio."
134 CHAPTER 8
recognized virtue. So transparent was that instinct for goodness that one
naturally had regard for the common good and lost the capacity to
deceive. Vergerio used Cicero's definition of ethos to explain his sense:
"The man who has such an attitude, as Cicero says, will not even dare
to do nor to conceive of something which he does not have the courage
to advocate." It took special insight to recognize the blessed character of
such a human life. The common people, deluded as always, thought that
those men are happiest who rule over others and abound in wealth
sufficient to indulge their every pleasure. In reality, such men constantly
thirst for greater riches and are never satisfied. Their frustrations are
chronic. One who obeys the most genuine impulses of human reason,
on the other hand, generously donates his wealth for charitable purpos-
es. His deep longing for union with God is partially satisfied in this life
and arouses even greater desire for lasting union in the afterlife.^^
When Vergerio finally answered his own question about a remedy
for his sinfulness, he offered a resounding affirmation that the mercy of
God far exceeds the combined iniquity of all sinners. According to
Vergerio's calculations, God had given grace abundantly to human
beings. And Vergerio had personally experienced that divine generosity
because Jerome had proved such an effective heavenly patron for himself
and his family. Likewise, Jerome's example had spurred Vergerio to
pursue virtue while continuing on the path of liberal studies.^' Ver-
gerio's maturing convictions, however, conflicted with reactionary
currents of his day. While Vergerio spoke in praise of Jerome, who wit-
nessed to the value of humanist learning for the Church, Carlo Malate-
sta destroyed a statue of Virgil for purportedly pious motives. While
Vergerio denounced the common tendency to measure greatness in
terms of slaughter in warfare and success in imperialism, Giangaleazzo
Visconti embroiled his world in wars designed to bring him the crown
of Italy.^° Finally, while Vergerio offered Jerome's detachment as a
^ Epist., 180-82 (a letter to Remigio Soranzo from 16 August 1396). See esp. 180, where
Vergerio cites Cicero Off. 3.19.77: "Puram autem mentem intelligo, non earn, quae ex defec-
tu cognitionis facilis est falli, fallere nesciens, sed earn, quae ex abundantia virtutis omnibus
bene consuli cupit. In qua nihil est duplex, nihil simulatum, nihil tectum; sed, quicquid est,
omnia palam est. Qui hanc mentem habet, hie nedum facere, ut Cicero ait, sed nee cogitare
quicquam audebit quod non audeat praedicare."
^' Sermo 10: "Verum ea una res me consolatur et ad spem erigit, quoniam scio maiorem
esse misericordiam Dei mei quam peccantium omnium iniquitatem." Sermo 5: "Huiusce-
modi effictiotum iucunda, tum et perutilis est mihi. Quotiens enim libet devotissimum mihi
patronum meum coram induco; quo praesente, ne dicere quidem aut facere, ac ne cogitare
quidem quicquam mali audeo. Sed, hortante eo, in bona studia et bonas spes laetus erigor."
^ Sermo 2: "Magnum iudicatur in terris vicisse regna, occupasse imperium, devictis
Humanism's Patron Saint 135
remedy for the illness of the Schism, the two rival claimants and their
supporters tightened their grip upon their respective spheres of authori-
ty. In the tradition of Christian prophets who found their lives "punctu-
ated by dramatic conflicts with unjust authorities," Jerome had de-
nounced the clericalism of Rome's ministers, never wavering in his
courageous conviction that ecclesiastical rank does not make one a
Christian.^^ Vergerio now sought to bring that message to the Papal
Court itself.
hostibus triumphasse, et terrenam gloriam plausu populorum et favoribus quaesisse munda-
nis." Sermo 4: "Solent autem in mundanis laudibus celebrari certamina, victoriae, triumphi,
et cetera huiuscemodi." Ibid.: "Si enim magnum est urbem aliquam aut regnum unum
mundi vincere, quanto mains est mundum ipsum superare?" Sermo 5: "Soletquippe indoc-
tum vulgus existimare non posse magnas res fieri nisi caede, bello, armis, militia, obsidione
urbium, captione, eversione, sed fallitur."
^' Hieronymus Ep. 14.9 {CSEL 54:58): "Non facit ecclesiastica dignitas Christianum."
The characterization of confessors is offered by Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise
and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago, 1981), 101.
CHAPTER 9
Humanism and Church Reform
Sometime between March and August of 1405, Pierpaolo Vergerio
returned to Rome. His willingness to accept employment in the
Roman Curia marked a change of heart. During his first visit to Rome
in 1398, Vergerio felt disillusioned by the moral corruption within the
Curia and dismayed by the general neglect for ancient culture. Although
Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna, a trusted mentor, had repeatedly
urged Vergerio to seek employment at the Papal Court, he had never
done so. Both men loathed the unscrupulous politicking of Pope Boni-
face IX (1389-1404), During an embassy for Francesco Novello da Car-
rara in 1400, Conversini found it scandalous that Boniface had to place
armed guards at the door and that he interrupted his attendance at Sun-
day Mass to discuss Giovanni's mission. Vergerio in turn, like most
modem historians, remembered the pope for his crass practice of simo-
ny.^ Boniface had subdued the Roman nobility and recovered cities which
Giangaleazzo Visconti had seized within the Papal States, but he did so,
according to the two humanists, through disastrous moral compromises.
Vergerio felt a new sense of possibility after Cosimo Migliorati was
elected to succeed Boniface. The new pope chose the name Innocent VH
' See Epist., 286-87, 365 ("nisi Bonifacius DC, qui Ecclesiae praeerat, pridem didicisset
tnagis extimare pecuniam quam virtutem, quarum alterius inops erat, alterius opulentissi-
mus"); and Remigio Sabbadini, Giovanni da Ravenna insigne figura d'umanista (1343-1408),
Studi umanistici 1 (Como, 1924), 80-85. Vergerio later tried to convince Conversini to come
to Rome and work for Innocent VII; see Benjamin G. Kohl, "Introduction," in Giovanni
Conversini da Ravenna, Dragmalogia de eligibili vitae genere, H. Lanneau Eaker, ed. and
trans., Bucknell Renaissance texts in translation, in conjunction with The Renaissance Soci-
ety of America: Renaissance Texts Series 7 (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell Univ. Press, and
London: Associated University Presses, 1980), 28-29.
138 CHAPTER 9
(1404-1406). Vergerio had cultivated Migliorati's friendship after their
lengthy encounters in Rome. He trusted the pope's ethical convictions
and knew firsthand his support for humanism. No sooner did Vergerio
take refuge in Rome, however, than he found himself embroiled in a
new outburst of civic violence.^ For years, Roman affairs had been
shaped by a struggle for hegemony involving kaleidescopic alliances
among three powers: the papal forces, the Roman nobility, and Ladislas
of Durazzo, the king of Naples (1400-1414). With significant aid from
Ladislas, Boniface IX had managed to hold the Roman nobles in check.
When Innocent became pope, Ladislas abandoned the papal alliance and
maneuvered against him in tandem with powerful Roman nobles. Iso-
lated, Innocent sought to negotiate an agreement with his noble rivals.
In exchange for the restoration of certain privileges, the nobles would
for their part acknowledge papal overlordship.
On 5 August 1405, shortly after Vergerio's arrival. Innocent received
a delegation of nobles at the papal palace. After a typically stormy
meeting, the nobles were ambushed on their way home by forces under
the command of Ludovico Migliorati, Innocent's nephew. In ruthless
fashion, Ludovico massacred the pope's political rivals, triggering a re-
bellion that forced Innocent and his court to flee to Viterbo. Vergerio
vividly remembered the helter-skelter retreat, during which the papal
party left the road littered with the dead bodies of its supporters.^ Even-
tually, the Roman nobles soured on their Neapolitan allies and drove
them out. They invited Innocent to return to Rome as lord in exchange
for promises not to rule by tyranny. The pope came back to Rome on
13 March 1406; in the intervening months, however. Innocent had con-
centrated solely on Roman affairs and ignored his promise to resolve the
Great Western Schism.
Lacking conclusive evidence, scholars have failed to establish precise-
ly what role Vergerio filled during his years at the Papal Court. His
name is not found in the existing registers of Innocent VII. Some have
therefore surmised that Vergerio functioned as a chancery secretary on
occasional request and that he held no fixed curial office. Vergerio him-
self stated only that Innocent VII had given him "an office and bene-
fices." Antonio Loschi, a contemporary humanist, indicated that Verge-
2 Epist., 284. Cf. ibid., 224-27.
^ PPV, Oratio (inc: O altitude divitiarum), Smith, ed., 132. For the massacre and its af-
termath, see Leonardo Smith, "Note cronologiche vergeriane, lU-V," Archivio veneto, ser.
5, 4 (1928): 114-24; and Smith, EpisL, 284-85 n. 1.
Humanism and Church Reform 139
rio held a position similar to that of Leonardo Bruni, who had won the
job of papal secretary in 1405.^ Vergerio's corpus includes a letter that
he wrote in the name of Innocent to Coluccio Salutati as Florentine
chancellor. The pope had enjoined Vergerio to respond to the arguments
of a tract which Salutati had recently sent to Rome. Salutati's short
treatise and Vergerio's letter dealt with the wisdom of the policies that
Innocent had adopted to end the Schism.^
Acting on reports that the Avignonese pope, Benedict XIII, had pro-
posed that both claimants abdicate, Salutati wrote to Innocent to en-
dorse the idea. In his response, Vergerio first asserted that Innocent had
already devised a better plan. The Roman pope intended to summon a
council which would meet in Rome and address all problems that had
arisen because of the Schism, including the possible resignation of both
popes. Vergerio argued for that plan from the popular legal dictum that
"what concerns all should be decided by all."^ Moreover, he upbraided
Salutati for believing rumors circulating among the common people.
Benedict had not indicated his willingness to resign but had only accept-
ed to meet with Innocent. By acting on rumors, Salutati had demeaned
his stature as an intellectual; by sending a copy of his tract to Benedict,
he had placed the Roman pope in a very difficult position. Vergerio also
intended to write a systematic refutation of the tract, but he abandoned
the project after Salutati's death on 4 May 1406. Six months later, Verge-
rio wrote a letter to Zabarella in Florence which he conceived as a final
* Epist, 286 ("quod ab eo [Innocent VII] honore et beneficils auctus sum . . ."), 326
("Nam officia quidem quae gero, si in rationem forsitan deducantur, quamvis industriae
magis praemia quam gratiae munera existimari debent, tamen a predecessore huius fere
omnia accepi . . ."). The relevant passage in Loschi's poem is cited by Smith, EpisL, 454n;
and George Holmes, The Florentine Enlightenment 1400-50 (New York: Pegasus, 1969), 60
n. 2. For the debate on Vergerio's role, see Ludwig Pastor, Storia dei Papi dalla fine del
Medio Evo, Clemente Benetti et al., trans. (Trent and Rome, 1890-1934), 1:131; Conrad
Bischoff, Studien zu P. P. Vergerio dem Alteren (Berlin and Leipzig, 1909), ix, 45-46; Smith,
Epist, 286 n. 1; and Holmes, Florentine Enlightenment, 56-63. Vergerio had become an
archdeacon of Piove di Sacco in 1404 and still possessed that benefice in 1408. Apparently
the antipope John XXIII named him a canon of Ravenna, for he is mentioned as such in a
document from the Council of Constance dated 1414 (Smith, Epist., 370 n. 1).
^ See Epist, 278-83; and Ronald G. Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works, and
Thought of Coluccio Salutati, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (Dur-
ham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1983), 175-76.
' See Epist, 280: "Cum enim causa haec Ecclesiae universae communis sit, communi
debet consilio decidi"; and Antonio Marongiu, "The Theory of Democracy and Consent in
the Fourteenth Century," in F. L. Cheyette, ed.. Lordship and Community in Medieval
Europe (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968), 404-13.
140 CHAPTER 9
tribute to Salutati/ He acknowledged that Salutati had suppHed an ex-
ample of true learning throughout his life and seemed especially interest-
ed in the possibility of acquiring Salutati's books.* The cool, almost
mercenary tone of the letter suggests that the wounds opened by Saluta-
ti's criticism of the De ingenuis moribus had not completely healed.
By June of 1406, Vergerio had begun to manifest renewed optimism
regarding Innocent's qualities of leadership. Through private conversa-
tions, Vergerio had come to believe that Innocent wished to govern with
justice and compassion.^ Moreover, the pope had enacted key reforms
of curial abuses. He had put an end to the manipulation of justice
through bribes. He relished the opportunity to respond to formal peti-
tions for assistance and willingly accepted advice in public consistories.
In August, Vergerio delivered a sermon to commemorate the return of
Castel Sant'Angelo to papal jurisdiction. Vergerio made the event signify
the reconciliation between the Romans and their lord bishop. The mas-
sacre and violence a year before had unexpectedly led to civic concord.
The Papal State now submitted to Innocent's authority, and he had nego-
tiated a peace treaty with King Ladislas of Naples. Vergerio urged his lis-
teners to see the hand of divine providence behind those events. God
had permitted that the established order be temporarily overturned in
order to assure necessary reforms. Stigmatizing the crimes committed by
the pope's nephew and the rebellion that followed, Vergerio emphasized
the harmony that must now reign by repeating the word "peace" seven
times in a brief interval. He also lectured Innocent that spiritual arms
alone had proven efficacious for the Church. ^°
The next two months were among the happiest that Vergerio had
yet experienced. Toward the end of September, he wrote a poem in
which he depicted an idyllic life at the court of a generous patron of hu-
manism. The poem celebrated a poetry contest held in the late summer
of 1406. Among the participants were Antonio Loschi and Francesco da
' Epist, 296-99.
* Ibid., 298: "Ex quibus [books] scire per te cupio quid extet et quam spem das exempla-
rium habendorum."
' Epist, 287-91.
'° Oratio (inc: O altitudo divitiarum), Smith, ed., 132-33, esp. 133: "Pacem enim is petiit
qui ne daturus quidem poscentibus credebatur; pacem attulit qui in militari studio armorum-
que disciplina pacis hostis videri potuerat. Sic dum bello intentissimus creditur, tunc potis-
simum de pace deliberat; alter dum bellum animose prosequitur, pacem insperatam invenit
et retulit." See also John M. McManamon, "Innovation in Early Humanist Rhetoric: The
Oratory of Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder," Rinascimento, n.s., 22 (1982): 11-12.
Humanism and Church Reform 141
Fiano. Despite urgings by Vergerio, Leonardo Bruni declined to submit
an entry, for he found himself occupied with the tasks that Innocent had
delegated to him. By early September, for example, Bruni had composed
a bull which announced that the pope was refounding the University of
Rome. According to Bruni's text. Innocent intended to make the Roman
university "a haven for all the humane letters" and especially for the
study of Greek. Vergerio and Bruni were relieved that the pope offered
institutional support to the humanist movement at that juncture.'^ For
several years, learned clerics such as Giovanni Dominici had mounted a
sustained attack on the humanist program. In sermons and tracts, Domi-
nici claimed that humanist studies in no way assisted the salvation of a
believer and at times proved harmful to authentic belief. Dominici speci-
fically censured the manipulative power of orators trained in classical
principles. The Florentine Dominican seemed to be the one opponent of
humanism who understood, as Vergerio did, the importance of rhetoric
to classical culture. He used his understanding of that importance to un-
derscore the dangers of a humanist education.^^
The polemic against humanism figured prominently in Vergerio's
mind as he composed his annual panegyric for Jerome in 1406. Vergerio
also became increasingly concerned that Innocent had failed to call the
council he had promised in order to address the grave problem of the
Schism. The rebellion in Rome the previous year had distracted Inno-
cent, but, now that his authority had been restored, Vergerio wondered
why he did not act on his promise. His panegryic on 30 September 1406
addressed both of those concerns. In response to the criticisms of Gio-
vanni Dominici, Vergerio presented a Jerome who epitomized the hu-
manist ideal of education given in the De ingenuis moribus. Jerome was
" On the poetry contest, see PPV, Poetica Narratio, Smith, ed., Epist., 453; Holmes,
Florentine Enlightenment, 60; and Germano Gualdo, "Antonio Loschi, segretario apostoUco
(1406-1436)," Archivio storico italiano \A7, no. 4 (1989): 750-57. Loschi had come to Rome
on an embassy for Doge Michele Steno; see Dieter Girgensohn, "Antonio Loschi und Bal-
dassare Cossa vor dem Pisaner Konzil (mit der Oratio pro unione ecclesiae)," IMU 30 (1987):
32. For Bruni's bull, dated 1 September 1406, see Gordon Griffiths, "Leonardo Bruni and
the Restoration of the University of Rome," Renaissance Quarterly 26 (1973): 1-10.
'^ See Berth old Louis Ullman, The Humanism ofColuccio Salutati, Medioevo e umanesi-
mo 4 (Padua: Antenore, 1963), 63-65; Holmes, Florentine Enlightenment, 32-35; Peter Den-
ley, "Giovanni Dominici's Opposition to Humanism," in Keith Robbins, ed., Religion and
Humanism, Studies in Church History 17 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 109-14; Daniel
R. Lesnick, "Civic Preaching in the Early Renaissance: Giovanni Dominici's Florentine Ser-
mons," in Timothy Verdon and John Henderson, eds., Christianity and the Renaissance: Im-
age and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1990),
214-22; and Giorgio Cracco, "Banchini, Giovanni di Domenico," DBI 5:657-64.
142 CHAPTER 9
learned {doctus) and upright {rectus). He had mastered a variety of disci-
plines that included the three biblical languages, Ciceronian oratory, the
interpretation of literature, history, and natural science. Vergerio also
claimed that Jerome had approached theology from well-founded per-
spectives, utilizing his language skills for the exegesis of Scripture. That
learning, moreover, constituted a prime element in his sanctity: Jerome
was a doctor of the Church. At that point in his career, speaking before
a distinguished audience of Roman clerics, Vergerio boldly confronted
the problem of Jerome's dream. The dream had only censured excessive
enthusiasm for humanist studies— not their pursuit. On the contrary,
Jerome's career demonstrated that one produced a rich Christian theol-
ogy by interpreting Scripture with sound training in the biblical lan-
guages and in history. Vergerio juxtaposed such theology to the tedious
Aristotelian metaphysics he had described in the De ingenuis moribusP
Furthermore, Jerome exemplified the sort of ethical cleric that the
Church needed in every era. Jerome had more in common with the vir-
tuous pagans of antiquity than he did with many clerics of the fifteenth
century. At a moment when his election to the papacy seemed certain,
Jerome left Rome for a life of asceticism. In contrast, the popes of
Vergerio's time clung to their power, causing profound division within
the institution. God had endowed Jerome with holiness sufficient to
tame a lion in order to demonstrate that patience and kindness could
overcome hatred. Innocent VII should approach the rival camp in
Avignon with such a charitable disposition. ^"^ The panegyric signaled
that Vergerio's confidence in Innocent VII had lessened over time. He
now felt that the pope needed public prodding to overcome his hesita-
tion and to take the steps necessary to end the Schism.
13 ppv, De ingenuis moribus, Gnesotto, ed., 126: "Scientia vero divina est de altissimis
causis et rebus quae sunt semotae a nostris sensibus, quas intelligentia tantum attingimus."
Sermo 8: "turn vero scripturae sacrae veraeque theologiae perceptionem. . . . Nee me deterre-
ret quod damnatus fuerit eius studii aliquando Hieronymus, cum in extatica visione tractus
ad iudicis aeterni tribunal et quinam esset interrogatus, pro Christiani nomine quod inter
metum trepidationemque profitebatur Ciceroniani sibi nomen obici audivit. Neque enim res
ipsa damnata est (sed fortassis eius studium vehementius) sine qua profecto vix sacrae lit-
terae, certe non tanta cum voluptate, legerentur."
'^ Sermo 8: "Cum mundo quippe gessit et vicit, quando sacerdos iam factus et summo
sacerdotio dignus habitus ab urbe cessit pompisque saeculi et omni ambitioni mundanorum
honorum renuntiavit. . . . Maledicos benefaciendo vincere et eorum in nos odium virtute pa-
tientiae mansuetudinis superare." In 1406, Innocent VII had issued a bull approving the Her-
mits of Saint Jerome of Fiesole. Gregory XII subsequently confirmed that approval; see A
Gregorio X ad Martinum V, vol. 4 of Bullarium diplomatum et privilegiorum Sanctorum Ro-
manorum Pontificum (Turin, 1859), 653-54.
Humanism and Church Reform 143
Two months later, after the death of Innocent on 6 November 1406,
Vergerio offered a severely critical assessment of his pontificate. Verge-
rio addressed the Roman cardinals in a public consistory held prior to
the opening of the conclave to elect Innocent's successor and conscious-
ly used blunt language to convince the cardinals that they must post-
pone the election. He had been encouraged to adopt a more prophetic
stance after he had discussed the problem of the Schism with Bernardino
da Siena. The two reformers first met in Viterbo, where Pietro Filargo,
the cardinal of Milan, had brought Bernardino to visit Innocent VII.
Bernardino continued to visit the Papal Court right up to the time of In-
nocent's final illness. Twenty-five years old at the time, Bernardino had
joined the Franciscan observance in 1402 and had been ordained in Sep-
tember of 1404. Vergerio and Bernardino shared a common appreciation
for the theological style of Jerome and a common zeal for reform that
they discussed during Bernardino's visits to the court. Vergerio used his
speech to present their mutual analysis of the situation. ^^
Vergerio began by tracing the historical evolution of the Roman line
of popes. The first two, Urban VI and Boniface IX, had shown open
contempt for those who pressed for reunion. Vergerio specifically cen-
sured Boniface for his cruel tyranny; only his sudden death had prevent-
ed the defection of leading members of the Roman observance. Both
popes had governed according to personal whim, and the Church had
no constitutional agency like a Parliament to rein in popes who prac-
ticed such unrestrained freedom [licentia). If Vergerio openly condemned
the actions of those two popes, he expressed disappointment with Inno-
cent VII. The brevity of Innocent's reign and the complexity of the issue
15 "ppy ^ Pro redintegranda uniendaque Ecclesia, Combi, ed., 373: "Liberutis vero dictandi,
qua sum apud vos usus, veniam impetrat et causae dignitas, quae neglecta mansit, et meum
ardens, quod est commune aeque Christianis omnibus, votum." On Bernardino's role, see
ibid., 369-70. In general, see Bruno Korosak, "Bernardino da Siena," in Bibliotheca sancto-
rum (Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII, Pontificia Univ. Lateranense, 1961-69), 2:1303; Iris
Origo, The World of San Bernardino (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), 15-28,
183-205; Walter Brandmiiller, "L'ecclesiologia di San Bernardino da Siena," in Domenico
Maffei and Paolo Nardi, ed., Atti del simposio intemazionale Cateriniano-Bemardiniano
(Siena, 17-20 aprile 1980) (Siena: AccademiaSenese degli Intronati, 1982), 404-6; and Cosimo
Damiano Fonseca, "Bernardino da Siena e la vita del clero del suo tempo: A proposito del
Sermo V De rectoribus et praelatis," in Atti del simposio intemazionale Cateriniano-Bemardi-
niano, 502-6. None of those authors mentions the episode described by Vergerio. On the
speech to the consistory, see Bischoff, Studien, 49, 55-63; Holmes, Florentine Enlightenment,
56-57; McManamon, "Innovation," 28-30; and Dieter Girgensohn, "Kardinal Antonio Cae-
tani und Gregor XII. in den Jahren 1406-1408: vom Papstmacher zum Papstgegner," Quel-
len und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bihliotheken 64 (1984): 146-49.
144 [ CHAPTER 9
offered mitigating circumstances. Still, Vergerio revealed to the cardinals
that he himself had first proposed the ideal of a council and that Inno-
cent, in endorsing the proposal, had even agreed to resign there. Verge-
rio thought that Bernardino da Siena had strengthened Innocent's
resolve to see the plan through. Regrettably, that was not the case: Inno-
cent wavered until it was too late. Vergerio therefore added Innocent's
name to the list of popes he reproached for not doing more to end the
Schism. ^^
The blame did not end there. Immediately after his election. Innocent
had sworn to a capitulation that obliged him to resign, and the cardinals,
whom Vergerio now addressed, had guaranteed the oath. They must then
share in his guilt. In fact, the ritual of taking an oath in the conclave had
severely weakened the collective ethos of the cardinals: "we have seen the
force of [your] oaths." To underline the error of the Roman party, Verge-
rio used the classic dilemma of expediency versus morality. In antiquity,
theoreticians of rhetoric had debated whether political decisions should be
made on the basis of expediency alone or whether morality must be
factored into the decision. The Greeks favored expediency, while the
Romans broadened the criteria to give morality a fundamental role. Ver-
gerio censured the cardinals for reducing their decisions to matters of expe-
diency and ignoring morality. They were only interested in maintaining
their power, not in resolving the Schism.^''
Staffed by persons of uncompromising ambition, the Roman Curia
had continually obstructed any plan for reunion. Vergerio bluntly ob-
served that many cardinals enter the conclave campaigning for election
as pope and some even have no scruples about resorting to simony to as-
sure victory. Did it make sense to believe that one who attained the of-
fice after such effort and expense would then turn around and resign it?
Vergerio thought it far more likely that one who attained that supreme
power "to bind and to loose" would then use the power to loose him-
self from any hindrances. Vergerio likewise censured the business of the
Roman Curia. Massive wealth had accumulated to some of its members;
they profited from the issuing of official papal documents, whose posses-
sion constituted superficial testimony of faith. Much time was spent in
consistory litigating disputes over the ownership of property. All of
16 PPV, Pro redintegranda uniendaque Ecclesia, Combi, ed., 362-63, 365-66, 368-70.
'^ Ibid., 360-61, 363, and esp. 366: "An in contentione honesti atque utilis, praesertim
cum praeponderare honestum nemo negat, deliberatione vostra [scripsi: nostra] utile honesio
praeferetur?"
Humanism and Church Reform 145
those specific abuses were part of a general failure on the part of the
Roman Church, which Vergerio analyzed according to a primitivist
vision of church history.
In simplest terms, the Roman Church had become an institution
which her founders would not recognize. Vergerio had the cardinals im-
agine that Peter and Paul now reappeared to observe the Roman
Church. Though the two apostles had "neither silver nor gold" (Acts
3:6), the Roman Church had amassed incredible wealth. Though the
early Church held all property in common (Acts 4:32), individuals with
huge private estates now controlled the community's affairs. The ulti-
mate origins of the Schism were rooted in the Church's enrichment to
the benefit of a clerical class. Vergerio even censured artists in his day
who depicted Peter and Paul dressed in rich garments. They distorted
the historical reality and offered visual justification for the corruption of
the Roman Church. Formerly endowed with leaders who concerned
themselves with the reform of lapsed morals, the Church was now dom-
inated by a clerical nobility who sought to recover lost territory or for-
tify that already in their possession.^*
To dramatize the situation, Vergerio invoked two specters before his
audience. The Roman clergy faced a genuine possibility of rebellion by
the lay members of the Church. Exasperated by the unwillingness of the
clergy to resolve the Schism, secular authorities might well try to im-
pose a solution.^' Secondly, Vergerio gave the cardinals dramatic proof
that God would severely punish their immoral behavior. From privi-
leged knowledge, he revealed that Bernardino da Siena had warned Inno-
cent of the dire consequences of further delay. Either Innocent would
act to resolve the Schism and save his pontificate or God would punish
him for his insolence. Innocent indignantly rejected Bernardino's ultima-
tum and threw him out of the papal palace. Within days. Innocent con-
tracted the disease that soon proved fatal .^° One refused to heed a
prophet's warning at genuine risk.
'* See ibid., 361-62, 365-66, 368-69; and Gordon Leff, "The Apostolic Ideal in Later
Medieval Ecclesiology," The Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 18 (1967): 58-82.
" PPV, Pro redintegranda uniendaque Ecclesia, Combi, ed., 362, 365-66, 373.
^ Ibid., 370: "Is igilur, postremo adveniens, mandato se Dei venire dixit, iustum ei de-
nuntiare, ut ad hoc intenderet, et libere se poneret in manu Dei. Quod si fecisset, eum,
prout erat, verum unicumque papam mansurum; si minus, celeriter esse puniendum. Quern
cum ille indignatus repulisset, adiecit is postea abiens, expeditam rem esse, derelictum esse
hunc hominem a Deo. Itaque post non multos dies incidit in morbum, quo per supremum
doloris cruciatum extinctus est."
146 CHAPTER 9
Vergerio repeatedly urged the cardinals to delay an election in order
to gain the time necessary for obtaining the resignation of Benedict XIII.
Then the entire Church might meet in council to elect a new pope and
see to the reform of the Roman Curia. Circumstances practically dictat-
ed the wisdom of delaying. Vergerio felt certain that the kingdom of
France, linchpin for any solution, would shift from the Avignonese to
the Roman observance if Benedict rejected the overture to resign. More-
over, Benedict faced pressure from the members of his court, who had
lost patience as the dispute festered. Vergerio finally emphasized that the
cardinals would perform an authentic act of charity if they delayed.
They would no longer take their stand purely on legal rights but sacri-
fice even legitimate privileges for the sake of union. Till then, they had
myopically thought to save their control of Rome, while risking the loss
of the world and their souls. By surrendering their standing, they would
revitalize their ethos and rally political leaders to the cause of union.^*
The cardinals refused to postpone their task and elected the Venetian
Angelo Correr, who took the name Gregory XII (1406-1415, d. 1417).
The election created embarassment for all those at the Papal Court who
had opposed the election; that was especially true for Vergerio. The car-
dinals had subjected Gregory to the customary oath to resign, which
Vergerio had ridiculed in his speech. Given the ethical dilemma, Verge-
rio bid to succeed Salutati as chancellor of Florence in late November of
1406. That having failed, he decided to remain at Rome and continue to
serve the pope.^^ In the first months after making the difficult decision,
Vergerio felt a certain sense of vindication. He had achieved an even
more intimate rapport with Gregory, whom he prodded to accept a
meeting with Benedict XIII. Vergerio composed a letter to Benedict in
Gregory's name, in which Gregory went so far as to volunteer to abdi-
cate for the sake of peace. The popes needed to act quickly because the
patriarch of Constantinople had recently sent inquiries about possible
reunion between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Vergerio
seemed genuinely enthused: if the rival popes had the courage to act,
Christ's body might be made one again.^^
^' Ibid., 360-61, 364-65, 367-68, 372-74.
^ Hans Baron, Humanistic and Political Literature in Florence and Venice at the Begin-
ning of the Quattrocento: Studies in Criticism and Chronology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1955), 107-13. On Vergerio's service to Gregory XII, see Bischoff, Studien, 63-
69.
^ Epist., 305-6 n. 1, 326-29. Vergerio seemed to hope that Manuel Chrysoloras, once he
had become a Latin Christian, might be elected as a reunion pope. See Vergerio's inscription
Humanism and Church Reform 147
Over the course of the next three years, Vergerio found himself in-
creasingly isolated within the Papal Court as he struggled against the
"contagion of this place."^^ With increasing vehemence, he castigated
anyone who opposed the plan for face-to-face negotiations. In the end,
however, Gregory himself avoided the meeting with Benedict XIII after
both had agreed to it. Shortly thereafter, Gregory held a public consisto-
ry at Lucca in which he violated his oath not to appoint further cardi-
nals. Leonardo Bruni described the tense scene as Gregory forbade any
of the cardinals to rise and speak. One after another, several of the cardi-
nals abandoned the hall. When those cardinals fled from Lucca, Gregory
sent a papal army into Florentine territory to arrest them.^^ Support
for Gregory began to hemorrhage, yet Vergerio still hesitated to aban-
don the pope. In September of 1408, Vergerio once again spoke on
Jerome before the Papal Court then resident at Siena; and once again he
hammered away at his favorite themes. Jerome exemplified the appropri-
ateness of secular learning and the importance of interior detachment,
which he proved by ceding to his enemies and withdrawing from Rome.
In those troubled years, when Vergerio himself came under attack by
rivals in Rome, he must have felt a special kinship to Jerome. Vergerio
found it odd that those men stirred up sinister rumors against him.
Neither his family background nor his wealth endowed him with great
standing, which usually aroused their envy. He thus conjectured that
they resented his special intimacy with Gregory. In 1408, when the
Papal Court had traveled to Rimini, Vergerio was evicted from a com-
fortable dwelling by Cardinal Antonio de Calvis. In a letter to Fran-
cesco Zabarella, Vergerio ridiculed the overbearing cleric, characterizing
him as a human body with a cow's intelligence. By the summer of 1409,
with support rapidly eroding, Gregory XII had summoned a council at
Cividale del Friuli. Vergerio still remained with the pope, apparently
hoping that he would obtain a benefice as deacon in Cividale, the place
for the tomb of Chrysoloras in Guarino Guarini da Verona, Epistolario, Remigio Sabbadini,
ed., Miscellanea di storia veneta 8, 11, 14 (Venice, 1915-19), 1:114: "vir doctissimus pruden-
tissimus optimus, qui tempore generalis concilii Constantiensis diem obiit [15 April 1415]
ea existimatione ut ab omnibus summo sacerdotio dignus haberetur. ..."
" Epist., 315.
" Leonardo Bruni, Epistolarum libri VIII, Laurentius Mehus, ed. (Florence, 1741), 59-65
{Ep. 2.21). An English translation by Gordon Griffiths is published in The Humanism of Leo-
nardo Bruni: Selected Texts, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 46, in conjunction with
The Renaissance Society of America: Renaissance Texts Series 10 (Binghamton, N.Y., 1987),
328-32.
148 CHAPTER 9
where he had been happiest during his childhood. Instead, he found
himself in the most serious trouble of his life. During a brief visit to
Venice, he was seen by one of Gregory's nephews on a boat owned by
acquaintances from Ferrara. Assuming that Vergerio was trying to sneak
away to the Council of Pisa, the papal nephew had him detained. After
a night under house arrest, Vergerio managed to clarify his position and
regain his freedom.^^
In late summer of 1409, the Council of Cividale concluded its delib-
erations without succeeding in rallying support for Gregory. When Ver-
gerio failed to gain a benefice, he left the Papal Court and returned to
his hometown of Capodistria. It must have been an especially bitter pill
for him to swallow. He closed himself off in silent isolation for almost
two years and only broke his silence to congratulate Francesco Zabarella
when the antipope John XXIII (1410-1415) named him a cardinal in
1411. Vergerio followed that initial communication with a flurry of let-
ters to Zabarella which betrayed his violent shifts of mood in Capodi-
stria.^'' Vergerio once commiserated with his close friend, characteriz-
ing his rise in rank as an ironic lowering of status. Zabarella now found
himself on the lowest rung of the seniority ladder, and he was saddled
with the considerable expense of maintaining a household befitting his
status. Vergerio's next letter, however, indicated his readiness to join
that household at a moment's notice. Zabarella quickly stilled his enthu-
siasm by warning him to eat all that he could before coming to Rome,
where he would risk starvation. Vergerio asked Zabarella for a copy of
the declaration by John XXIII forgiving all debts owed to the Holy See;
perhaps he had such debts himself. The same letter excoriated the
tawdry spectacle that followed a major cleric's death in Rome. While the
cleric himself faced probable punishment in hell, given the high percent-
^^ See Epist., 304-6, 316-19, 328-29; Pio Paschini, ^nfonio Caetani Cardinale Aquileiese
(Rome, 1931), 59-60; and Philip J. Jones, The Malatesta of Rimini and the Papal State (Cam-
bridge and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1974), 127-33. According to Vittorio Zacca-
ria, Vergerio did not participate in the Council of Cividale and was represented at negotia-
tions for the benefice by Niccolo del Tacco, a canon of Capodistria; see his "Niccolo Leo-
nardi, i suoi corrispondenti e una lettera inedita di Pier Paolo Vergerio," Atti e memorie
delta Accademia di scienze, lettere ed arti in Padova, n.s., 95 (1982-83): 107-8 n. 41.
^^ See Epist., 330-43; and Agostino Sottili, "La questione ciceroniana in una lettera di
Francesco Zabarella a Francesco Petrarca (tav. FV)," Quademi per la storia dell'Universita di
Padova 6 (1973): 34-35. On the radicalization of Zabarella's thought, see Thomas E. Morris-
sey, "Franciscus Zabarella (1360-1417): Papacy, Community, and Limitations Upon Author-
ity," in Guy Fitch Lytle, ed.. Reform and Authority in the Medieval and Reformation Church
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1981), 37-45, 47-54.
Humanism and Church Reform 149
age of immoral persons at that rank, his debtors and the Apostolic Cam-
era battled for his inheritance. Vergerio's mood rarely seemed more de-
spondent than the day on which he wrote to Zabarella to narrate the
tragedy of a peasant family from the Euganean hills near Padua. The
place that had supplied the two scholars with respite during their days
in Padua had turned into a diabolic sort of killing field. An entire family
had suffered a tragic series of deaths, for which Vergerio attributed
responsibility to fortune alone.^^
Vergerio ultimately accepted an invitation from Zabarella to rejoin
him at the Papal Court on the eve of the Council of Constance (1414-
1418).^' The years of the council marked a turning point in Vergerio's
life. He exchanged letters with a new generation of humanists in the Ve-
neto, to whom he bequeathed his most cherished educational ideals.^
In 1414, he praised Gasparino Barzizza as a true intellectual of ethos
who had dedicated himself to training adolescents in the practice of rhet-
oric. Over the next fifteen years, Barzizza helped to codify Ciceronian
^ Epist, 341-43. Vergerio described how the family's tragedy worsened through a tragic
series of errors. Having watched their father castrate bulls, two sons did the same thing to
their baby brother. Realizing their error from the baby's screams, they hid in the bread
oven and fell asleep. When their mother returned from the fields, she lit the oven as she
hurried to prepare the evening meal. In horrifying sequence, she discovered that she had im-
molated the elder sons and that the baby had bled to death. When her husband returned,
he killed his pregnant wife in a fit of mad rage and was awaiting his own execution. See also
Remo L. Guidi, Aspetti religiosi nella letteratura del Quattrocento (Rome and Vicenza: Libre-
ria Intemazionale Edizioni Francescane, 1973-83), 5:71-72, 612-13.
^ Smith, Epist, 351 n. 1. For Vergerio's activities in the first years of the council, see
Walter Brandmiiller, Bis zur Abreise Sigismunds nach Narbonne, vol. 1 of Das Konzil von
Konstanz 1414-1418 (Padebom et al.: Schoningh, 1991), 117, 164, 399 (where Brandmiiller
failed to identify the "Dr. iur. utr. Pietro Paolo da Capodistria" with Vergerio).
" Epist, 351-52 (PPV to Barzizza), esp. 352: "cum tradendae artis rhetoricae curam
susceperis, tantum in promovendis adulescentibus et studio tuo et felicitate quadam valueris,
ut iam plurimos qui probe ex arte dicere valeant proferre possis. Qui si morum quoque prae-
cepta sequentur et vivendo te imitabuntur, duplicis gloriae fructum ex tua conversatione re-
portabunt." Ibid., 356-59 (Guarino to PPV), esp. 358: "Nam, quotiens Manuel Chrysoloras
. . . venit in mentem, nonne et ille tibi magnum quempiam et eloquentissimum expetere ora-
torem videtur, qui eum non tam sui quam posteritatis gratia scriptis exprimeret, ut homines
integerrimum, optimum, sapientissimum, sanctissimum virum sicut publicum quoddam in-
tuerentur speculum et exemplar, unde sibi bene beateque vivendi praecepta proponerent et
ab eo, qui caelestem in terris vitam egit, imitationem virtutis haurirent?" Ibid., 360-62 (PPV
to Niccolo Leonardi); and Margaret L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician
Dominance (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986), 10. I am aware of fifty-one manu-
scripts, which, in all likelihood, contain the letter to Niccolo on Barbaro's De re uxoria {Ep.
137 in Smith's edition). On Vergerio's inscription for the tomb of Chrysoloras at Con-
stance, see Guarino, Epist, Sabbadini, ed., 1:112-14; Giuseppe Cuvamelli, Manuele Crisolora,
vol. 1 oil dotti bizantini e le origini dell'umanesimo (Florence: Vallecchi, 1941), 167-70; Zac-
caria, "Niccolo Leonardi," 100 n. 25; and Brandmiiller, Bis zur Abreise Sigismunds, vol. 1 of
Das Konzil, 51-52, 151-52.
150 CHAPTER 9
Standards by writing a series of rhetorical textbooks. In 1415, Vergerio
received a letter from Guarino da Verona after Vergerio had written to
propose a posthumous memorial for Manuel Chrysoloras. Guarino in-
sisted that Vergerio was the proper Phidias to immortalize their Greek
professor. In subsequent years, Guarino made Vergerio's De ingenuis
moribus the basis for his influential pedagogy. Finally, Vergerio wrote a
brief letter to his friend Niccolo Leonardi, applauding Francesco Bar-
baro's De re uxoria. Vergerio approved the treatise on wifely duties for
its precepts and eloquence. Later publishers used Vergerio's letter as the
ideal endorsement for Barbaro's tract.
At the council itself, Vergerio twice performed official functions. In
1414, he was named one of the examiners of the voting {scrutator). The
following year, he participated in the council's diplomatic embassy to
the Iberian kings and to Benedict XIII. The emperor Sigismund himself
led that delegation, and the contacts between emperor and humanist laid
the grounds for their future collaboration. Vergerio received no further
mention in the records of the council until the summer of 1417, when
he became involved in a dispute over procedural matters, which tempo-
rarily ruptured his close ties to Francesco Zabarella. Vergerio sided with the
emperor Sigismund, who wished to see the council delay the election of a
pope until it had attended to the reform of the Roman Curia. Zabarella
favored allowing the cardinals to elect a pope and then, under papal leader-
ship, having the council attack problems of church reform.^^
On 10 August 1417, following the common university practice for
announcing a disputation, Vergerio posted on the doors of the churches
of Constance a series of propositions that he was willing to defend pub-
licly.^^ He was responding to members of the cardinals' party who had
drafted theses a month earlier; they argued that the council should not
postpone the papal election. Most cardinals at Constance preferred to
proceed with the election in order to have the greatest say in that choice
and to limit the emperor's influence over subsequent questions of re-
form. Their July theses condemned those who urged delay for the pur-
poses of reform; once the pope was elected, he would attend to the
problems afflicting church government. The party of the cardinals vili-
^' See Gasparo Zonta, Francesco Zabarella (1360-1417) (Padua, 1915), 110-13; Smith,
Epist., 370-73 n. 1; and Thomas E. Morrissey, "Emperor-Elect Sigismund, Cardinal Zaba-
rella, and the Council of Constance," The Catholic Historical Review 69 (1983): 366-70.
^^ See PPV, Quaestiones de Ecclesiae potestate in Finke, ed.. Acta, 3:667-69 (where Ver-
gerio is described as a doctor of medicine and civil and canon law as well as "poet laure-
ate"); and Bischoff, Studien, 73-76. The rebuttal offered by the party of the cardinals is
found in Finke, ed.. Acta, 3:669-70.
Humanism and Church Reform 151
fied the imperial party for disrupting the council. By such behavior, the
emperor's adherents fomented continuing division within the Church,
even though they claimed to contribute to its resolution. Ominously,
the theses offered by the cardinals' party suggested a taint of Hussitism
in anyone who dared to affirm the contrary.
Vergerio nevertheless attempted a reply on the emperor's behalf,
and, by using the typically Scholastic medium of the quaestio, he com-
pounded the personal risks. On previous occasions, Vergerio had minced
no words in censuring clerical immorality. But those sentiments were ut-
tered in public speeches, and rhetoricians had always granted the proba-
ble nature of the truth they affirmed. Now, however, he resorted to a
medium that initiated a process of disputation conceived to determine
definitive truths. Responding directly to the insinuation of heresy, Ver-
gerio claimed that the imperial party had elaborated an ecclesiology con-
trary to that of Hus but respectful of the council's authority to decide
the manner and time for the election. In effect, Vergerio suggested that
the Church had the best opportunity to reform itself in the absence of
a pope. Historically, the popes had often hindered any serious reform
activity. Without an all-powerful monarch seated on the throne of Peter,
the Church had incomparable freedom to act. Were the cardinals to
elect a pope without first attacking the moral problems of the institu-
tion, no serious reform would ever take place. Vergerio's past experience
with popes like Innocent VII and Gregory XII had made him skeptical
that the popes desired to put their own house in order.
Because Vergerio advocated the imperial position, he risked a trial
for heresy. When the emperor's opponents harshly denounced his
theses, he withdrew his offer to debate their content publicly. Eventual-
ly, the cardinals and the representatives of the five nations elected Mar-
tin V (1417-1431), and Vergerio was given a post in the imperial court.
However, before either of those events occurred, Francesco Zabarella
died on 2 September 1417. His death elicited from Vergerio a moving
tribute in the form of an epistolary eulogy. The eulogy was his final
pronouncement on the intellectual's role in Church government. Char-
acteristically, Vergerio contrasted Zabarella's heroism with the incompe-
tence and immorality of the majority of churchmen.^^ Throughout his
career, Zabarella had struggled against his own reticence to rise within
" See Epist, 362-78; and Gregorio Piaia, "La fondazione filosofica dellateoria conciliare
in Francesco Zabarella," in Antonino Poppi, ed., Scienza efilosqfia all'Universita di Padova
nel Quattrocento, Contributi alia storia dell'Universita di Padova 15 (Padua: Centro per la
storia deH'Universita, and Trieste: LINT, 1983), 431-37.
152 CHAPTER 9
the ecclesiastical hierarchy. To Vergerio, Zabarella seemed odd for two
reasons: he did not seek promotion, and he was eminently qualified to
receive it.^'* Had Zabarella not died suddenly, Vergerio felt certain that
the council would have chosen him as the pope to reunify Christendom.
As such, Zabarella would have been the antithesis of the preceding
popes, whom Vergerio named in the letter. Boniface IX had proven
himself an avaricious simoniac, Gregory XII a liar, and John XXIII an
almost total incompetent. Vergerio looked back upon the history of the
Schism and argued that it had lasted so scandalously long due to the in-
transigence of popes and clergy. The Church generally suffered from ex-
cessive ambition on the part of its ministers. Francesco Zabarella had
shown himself anything but ambitious. He offered supreme proof of his
pastoral dedication by helping to organize the Council of Constance and
by risking his own reputation to steer it toward a successful conclusion.
Despite their disagreement over ways of proceeding, which Vergerio at-
tributed to haste on the part of the cardinals, the two had remained
close friends. Zabarella's contribution as professor and scholar were also
readily visible at the council. His former students filled the hall at Con-
stance, belying any divorce between learning and piety. Through his let-
ter, Vergerio helped to shape a portrait of his friend and patron that re-
flected humanist ideals. In medium and message, humanists like Vergerio
have proven effective makers of Renaissance myths.^^ With Zabarella's
death, Vergerio lost his closest link to the Paduan and Roman past. His
future was with the emperor Sigismund who rewarded Vergerio for his
support during the council's controversies by hiring him to serve in the
imperial government. Vergerio had finally succeeded in his long quest
for a political position that would allow him to practice his humanist
skills. After the council, Vergerio left Constance for Buda and Prague.
Ironically, at that moment of personal triumph, Vergerio receded into
the shadows of history.
^^ Vergerio even listed the offices that Zabarella did not receive. In the 1380s, the Flor-
entine chapter had elected Zabarella as their bishop despite the fact that he was a young for-
eigner. Vergerio characterized their judgment as much more prudent than that of Pope Ur-
ban VI, who ovenurned the election in favor of his candidate. Vergerio claimed that
Zabarella would have been named a cardinal in 1398 if Boniface EX had not valued money
over virtue. In 1409, Zabarella refused his election as bishop of Padua because it might seem
a challenge to Gregory XII during the Council of Pisa. In 1411, John XXIQ finally awarded
Zabarella the red hat that he so richly deserved. Vergerio conceded faint praise to John, not-
ing that his appointment of learned cardinals ranked among the few memorable deeds of his
brief period in office. Cf. Epist., 346.
^^ John M. McManamon, Funeral Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of Italian Humanism
(Chapel Hill, N.C., and London: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1989), 11-16, 66-68.
CHAPTER 10
Imperial Bureaucrat
On 21 May 1418, in the company of the emperor SIgismund, Pier-
paolo Vergerio left Constance for Buda. For almost twenty years,
until Sigismund's death in 1437, Vergerio served the emperor in a varie-
ty of functions. Despite the sketchy character of the documentary evi-
dence, it seems clear that Sigismund sought to utilize the full range of
Vergerio's talents. Vergerio's legal training, his firsthand knowledge of
northern Italian politics, his experience with church government, and
his expertise in the Latin and Greek languages all contributed to his
worth at the imperial court. Given Vergerio's dual degree in civil and
canon law, Sigismund had Vergerio accompany him when he convoked
an assize in various parts of the realm. ^ Those official convocations of
the emperor's court treated disputes at the highest levels of imperial ad-
ministration. Already in November of 1418, Vergerio signed himself as
a witness to the judgment that Sigismund rendered at Passau in Bavaria
against a group of exiles from Toul. From 1424 to 1425, Vergerio also
witnessed decisions in separate disputes that pitted Eric of Pomerania,
the king of Denmark, against the nobles of Holstein and Giinther von
Schwarzburg, the archbishop of Magdeburg, against the city of Halle.^
' See Wilhelm Altmann, ed.,Die Urkunden Kaiser Sigmunds (1410-37), vol. 11 of Regesta
Imperii (Innsbruck, 1896-1900), 1:261 (#3714), 1:298 (#4233a), 1:418 (#5894), 1:419 (#5911),
2:12 (#6199), 2:14-15 (#6247); and Leonardo Smith, Epist, 379-82 n. 1. The assizes convoked
from 1424 to 1425 met at Buda (Ofen), Visegrad (Blindeburg), and Tata (Totis).
^ With the support of the Danish Diet (1413) and Sigismund (1424), Eric of Pomerania
launched two unsuccessful wars against the counts of Holstein (1416-22, 1426-35). For the
dispute between Archbishop Giinther and Halle, see Joseph Von Aschbach, Die Zeit der
Hussitenkriege bis zur Eroffhung des Basler Konzils, vol. 3 of Geschichte Kaiser Sigmunds
(Hamburg, 1841; repr. Aalen, Germ.: Scientia Verlag, 1964), 3:232-33.
154 CHAPTER 10
Vergerio shared those official responsibilities with other courtiers
from Italy such as Brunoro della Scala, Ognibene Scola, Bertoldo Orsini,
and Ludovico Cattaneo. In fact, Sigismund had gathered a group of Ital-
ian expatriates whose previous experience made them valuable counsel-
ors as he pursued his reactionary dream of regaining a measure of direct
control over former imperial possessions in Italy. That failing, Sigis-
mund at least sought to challenge Venetian occupations in the frontier
regions of Friuli and Dalmatia.^ Typically, he blundered when he
moved to achieve both of those goals. For Vergerio, it must have been
a pleasure to see Ognibene Scola once again. The two had met twenty-
five years earlier at Padua, where Scola had become a trusted advisor to
Francesco Novello. Subsequently, Vergerio had Scola deliver a prized
copy of his De ingenuis moribus to Coluccio Salutati. Strongly anti- Vene-
tian in sentiment and married to a Veronese citizen, Scola had participat-
ed in the unsuccessful revolt to restore Brunoro della Scala to power in
1412. Now, the two itinerant scholars seemed amenable toward a
pro-imperial politics for the northern Italian world that had nurtured
their humanist and legal skills.^
Because of Vergerio's knowledge of church politics and his experi-
ence at the Papal Court, the emperor gave him important responsibili-
ties as he attempted to resolve the thorniest problem of his reign.
Vergerio immediately assisted the efforts to end the rebellion that had
erupted in Bohemia after Jan Hus was executed at the Council of Con-
stance. The Hussite question robbed Sigismund of the opportunity to
savor his moment as the "new Constantine" who had sponsored the
' Denys Hay and John Law, Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1380-1530, Longman
History of Italy (London and New York: Longman, 1989), 235.
* See Carlo Cipolla, La storia politica di Verona, Ottavio Pellegrini, ed. (Verona, 1900;
rev. ed., Verona: Edizioni Valdonega, 1954), 212-14; Roberto Cessi, "Nuove ricerche su
Ognibene Sco\z," Archivio storico lombardo 36, fasc. 23 (1909): 115-26; and Smith, Epist.,
208n. Scola was present at Passau in 1418, at Visegrad in 1424, and again at Tata in 1425. In
the latter instance, Ludovico Cattaneo da Verona also witnessed the document. In 1426,
Vergerio had occasion to renew his acquaintance with Antonio Loschi when Loschi received
the poet's laurel while on an embassy to the emperor Sigismund. See Germano Gualdo,
"Antonio Loschi, segretario apostolico (1406-1436)," Archivio storico italiano 147, no. 4
(1989): 750-64; and Dieter Girgensohn, "Antonio Loschi und Baldassare Cossa vor dem
Pisaner Konzil (mit der Oratio pro unione ecclesiae)," IMU 30 (1987): 30-35. There is no evi-
dence that Vergerio accompanied Sigismund to his crowning as king of Italy at Milan in
1431 or to his imperial coronation at Rome in 1433. See Poggio Bracciolini's famous descrip-
tion of the event in Helene Harth, ed., Lettere a Niccolo Niccoli, vol. 1 oi Lettere (Florence:
Olschki, 1984), 119-25 (English translation by Phyllis Gordan, Two Renaissance Book
Hunters: The Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus de Niccolis, Records of Civiliza-
tion: Sources and Studies 91 [New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1974], 176-81).
Imperial Bureaucrat 155
reunion council and kept it in session through the dark days when John
XXIII had abandoned the meeting. Sigismund had badly miscalculated
the council's approach to the question of Hus's orthodoxy. Rather than
absolve the Czech preacher, as Sigismund had anticipated, the council
condemned him as a heretic. That put the emperor in a quite vulnerable
position: having granted Hus safe conduct, he had nonetheless allowed
his burning at the stake. Sigismund actually changed his mind about the
wisdom of protecting Hus once he had become convinced that the
Czech reformer was really a heretical subversive. After Hus's death in
1415, Sigismund tried to mollify the anger among his supporters by pro-
posing that the council allow the Bohemians to continue to receive com-
munion under both species. The council agreed to reexamine its earlier
decree prohibiting the practice. However, on 22 February 1418, the
council issued a definitive condemnation of communion under both spe-
cies, and war soon erupted in Bohemia. The rebellion prevented Sigis-
mund from obtaining the crown of Bohemia after his brother Wenceslas
IV died in 1419. Infuriated, Sigismund decided to settle the matter by
recourse to arms, always his weakest suit.^ On 17 March 1420, Pope
Martin V issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Hussite rebellion;
Vergerio figured among those who promulgated the bull at Kutna Hora
(Kuttenberg) in the diocese of Prague on 16 August 1420.
Sigismund's motley army of Germans and mercenaries laid siege to
Prague, but stiff resistance from the Hussite camp forced the emperor to
withdraw. He again shifted tactics and tried to negotiate a solution. On
8 February 1421, the Hussites of Prague published a letter announcing
the results of a colloquy between Catholic and Hussite theologians. The
theologians had debated the four articles which Jakoubek of Stf ibro had
formulated to specify Hussite demands. The emperor selected Vergerio
as the official orator who would communicate the final position of the
Catholic camp. The moment offered precisely the sort of political op-
portunity for which Vergerio had honed his humanist training: before
an audience of the most powerful nobles, he had to convey a political
decision of the utmost importance for the peace of the empire. Three
notaries from each side stood ready to record the decision. According to
^ As a legate for Pope Martin V, Cardinal Giovanni Dominici visited Sigismund in 1418
in order to convince him that a crusade was necessary against the Hussites. That afforded
Vergerio an opportunity to see a former antagonist in the debate over humanist studies.
Dominici died at Buda in 1419; see Giorgio Cracco, "Banchini, Giovanni di Domenico,"
DBI 5:662.
156 CHAPTER 10
the Hussite account, Vergerio emphasized the substantial accord reached
between the disputants. They fully concurred on the demands articulat-
ed in three of the four articles. Even in the case of the fourth, which
posited communion under both species, the two camps had endorsed the
practice as permissible and commendable. However, the Catholic side
objected to making the practice obligatory because the scriptural evi-
dence did not establish that Jesus had explicitly enjoined it. Vergerio
concluded by offering the emperor's optimistic opinion that "with the
Lord's help, even on this point we hope that there will be concord."
The crowd purportedly erupted in spontaneous cries of joy.
Within weeks of the colloquy, however. Catholic participants denied
the veracity of the Hussite version; the Catholic delegates had actually
insisted on significant revision of all four articles. Intransigent militants
on both sides seized the opportunity to foment discord, and the emper-
or in turn resumed a belligerent stance. In August of 1421, Sigismund in-
vaded Bohemia for a second time, and in January of 1422, the rebel
forces once again won a decisive victory against the emperor's army. By
1432, many lost battles led Sigismund to sponsor discussions between a
Hussite delegation and a commission of the Council of Basel. In 1433,
those negotiations yielded an agreement known as the Compactata,
which in effect contained imperial endorsement for the justice of all four
articles discussed by the theologians twelve years earlier. After the em-
peror announced the agreement at the Diet of Iglau in 1436, he finally
managed to attain the crown of Bohemia, which he wore for only a few
months until his death in 1437. Nationalist sentiments fed by religious
dissension transformed central Europe into a roiling cauldron of hatred.
Agreement at Constance on allowing the laity to receive communion
from the chalice might have spared Christendom "much anguish." Ver-
gerio had used his oratorical skills to persuade the contending sides to
focus their efforts on that precise issue.^ His failure mirrored in many
^ Epist., 461-63. Francis Oakley supplies background on Hus and the controversies and
gives further bibliography in 7??e Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., and
London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1979), 195-203, 294-301. Oakley states that the four articles
were: (1) that there be free preaching of God's Word; (2) that the Eucharist be freely admin-
istered under both kinds, bread and wine, to all the faithful; (3) that all priests, including the
pope, should give up all superfluity of temporal possessions and live as models; and (4) that
the realm be cleansed of all public mortal sins. The judgment on the importance of the arti-
cle on communion under both species was offered by Hans-Georg Beck et al. in Hubert
Jedin and John Dolan, eds., and Anselm Biggs, trans.. From the High Middle Ages to the Eve
of the Reformation, vol. 4 of History of the Church (New York: Seabury, 1982), 472: "If there
could have been an accommodation at Constance in regard to the chalice, Christendom
Imperial Bureaucrat 157
ways the broader failures of Sigismund, who consistently suffered defeat at
the hands of the Hussites, lost his last outposts in northeastern Italy, and
saw Philip the Good annex imperial fiefs for the duchy of Burgundy.
Vergerio also served Sigismund as a court scholar. Somewhat ironi-
cally, given the lamentable state of Sigismund's imperial authority, he
had Vergerio translate into Latin the Greek works of Flavins Arrianus,
the Anabasis Alexandri and the Indike. A talented general and imperial
administrator under the emperor Hadrian, Arrian had given the Roman
world a straightforward account of the life of Alexander the Great,
avoiding the tendentious extremes of previous biographers.^ The com-
mission gave Vergerio an opportunity to reflect on the historian's craft
and the translator's methods. Vergerio censured three groups of histori-
ans for undermining the discipline's credibility: those who pandered to
popular taste by recording unsubstantiated rumors, those who sought to
secure funds or settle accounts by inflating or libeling a patron's reputa-
tion, and those who slighted matters of content by occupying them-
selves with style alone. In treating Alexander the Great, Arrian had con-
sulted the best sources, and he applied sound methods in using those
sources. Good history could be well written and faithful to the evi-
dence.^ In determining the proper approach to translation, Vergerio set-
tled on a middle course. He rejected a word-for-word rendering and con-
sidered any attempt to recreate the elegance of Greek prose in Latin to
be futile. Vergerio aimed to present the sense of Arrian's text in a trans-
lation that would be comprehensible to the broadest audience of read-
9
ers.
Vergerio's translation was so plodding that later humanists retranslat-
ed the works. Enea Silvio Piccolomini found Vergerio's autograph man-
uscript, and in 1454 sent the codex to humanists at the court of Alfonso
I of Naples. With the help of Greek scholars such as Niccolo da Sagun-
dino and Theodore Gaza, Bartolomeo Facio and Giacomo Curio com-
pleted a revision by 1461. While Piccolomini attributed flaws in Verge-
would probably have been spared much anguish."
' See Epist, 379-84; and Philip A. Stadter, "Arrianus, Flavius," CTC 3:3-6. In 1421,
Giovanni Aurispa brought the first known Western manuscript of Arrian from the Orient
to Rome. Smith, Epist, lix-lx, speculates that Sigismund obtained a copy of that manuscript
when he came to Rome in 1433 for his imperial coronation.
* Epist., 381-83. In a letter to Scipione Carteromacho in 1509, Giovanni Andrea Verge-
rio "Favonio" sought information about a De gestis Sigismundi Regis Pannoniae that Verge-
rio wrote. No trace of such a work has ever been found; see Smith, Epist, Ivii-lx.
' Epist, 383-84.
158 CHAPTER 10
rio's translation to creeping senility, Facio bluntly claimed that Vergerio
had gone mad in old age. An editor who publishes a new edition of a
work must justify himself and rather naturally starts by pointedly criti-
cizing the previous one.^°
In addition to the translation, Vergerio also etched his mark upon
the development of humanism in central and eastern Europe, ^^ His pe-
culiar approach reached young humanists in that region through his re-
lationship with loannes Vitez (ca. 1408-1472). Vitez eventually obtained
a number of Vergerio 's books with his autograph glosses on Latin
authors like Seneca and Lucan.^^ Whether through direct contact or
through the mediation of the glossed manuscripts, Vergerio gave Vitez
a model of Latin epistolary style and humanist textual philology and
stoked his passion for classical authors, especially for Cicero. Vitez man-
aged to disseminate those lessons when he became chancellor to King
Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490), and the king rewarded Vitez for his sup-
'° For Piccolomini's judgment, see Epist., 380n: "Paulus, ut videbis, senio confractus est
et ad sepulchrum festinat." Facio included his analysis in a short biography of Vergerio
(ibid., 483): "Sub extremum vitae tempus mente captus est. . . ." Ludovico Odassi corrected
the Facio-Curlo translation for the first printed edition at Pesaro in 1508. In 1575, at the re-
quest of Henricus Stephanus, Bonaventure de Smet prepared a new Latin version of the text
and ridiculed the work of Facio and his team. See ibid., 381n; and Stadter, "Arrianus," CTC
3:8, 15-17.
" Smith, Epist., xxix-xxx, 388-90n, suggests that, shortly before his death in Buda, Ver-
gerio may have met Gregorius Sanoceus (Gregorz z Sanoka / Gregor von Sanok), loannes
Vitez Qanos / Ivan Vitez), and Vitez's nephew lanus Pannonius (Ivan Cesmicki), who men-
tioned Vergerio in his panegyric of Guarino. Filippo Buonaccorsi "Callimaco" claimed that
Gregorius Sanoceus followed Vergerio's prose style (ibid., 480): "Nam Paulus quidem ora-
tione plurimum valebat. . . ." See further Eugenio Koltay-Kastner, "L'umanesimo italiano in
Ungheria," La Rinascita 2 (1939): 12-24 (who alleged without offering any proof that Verge-
rio headed the royal chancery in Buda); Drazen Budisa, "Humanism in Croatia," in Albert
Rabil, Jr., ed.. Humanism Beyond Italy, vol. 2 of Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms,
and Legacy (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 282-84; Marianna D. Bim-
baum, "Humanism in Hungary," in Albert Rabil, Jr., ed., Humanism Beyond Italy, vol. 2
of Renaissance Humanism, 295-99; and Ian Thomson, "The Scholar as Hero in lanus Pan-
nonius' Panegyric on Guarinus Veronensis," Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1991): 197-98.
'^ See the important discoveries of Klara Csapodi-Gardonyi, Die Bibliothek des Johannes
Vitez, Studia Humanitatis: Veroffentlichungen der Arbeitsgruppe fiir Renaissanceforschung
6 (Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1984), 20-28. Csapodi-Gardonyi posited a lengthy stay by
Vergerio at Nagy-Varad (Grosswardein) sometime between 1437 and his death in 1444. She
also feels that the manuscripts prove that Vergerio carried on some sort of official teaching
activity during his years in imperial service. Nagy-Varad today lies in Romania and is called
Oradea Mare. It is the capital and chief town of the Bihor district in northwestern Romania,
approximately fourteen kilometers from the Hungarian frontier. In a letter written in 1445
that served as the prologue to his Epistolario, Vitez emphasized that Jerome and other holy
doctors frequently cited the classical orators in their works; see loannes Vitez de Zredna,
Opera quae supersunt, Ivan Boronkai, ed., Bibliotheca scriptorum Medii Recentisque Aevo-
rum, n.s., 3 (Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1980), 31.
Imperial Bureaucrat 159
port in 1465 by naming him archbishop of Esztergom (Gran). In keep-
ing with his dedication to humanist ideals, Vitez sent his nephew lanus
Pannonius to study under Guarino in Italy and further glossed the pre-
cious texts he had obtained from Vergerio. Some of those manuscripts
consequently found their way into the magnificent library of Corvi-
nus."
In his spare time from official duties, Vergerio returned to exploring
the communicative powers of humor. At the University of Bologna,
around the age of twenty, Vergerio had written a Latin comedy in the
style of Terence. The moral of his ribald plot emphasized that educators
should concentrate on forming character. In his sixties, Vergerio tran-
scribed a small group oi facetiae, humorous anecdotes which reflected his
concern for the "moral" of any good tale. The amusing stories func-
" On paleographical grounds, namely the identity between the hand of Vergerio in cod.
Marc. lat. XrV.54 (4328) and the hand that wrote the glosses, Csapodi-Gardonyi assigned the
following manuscripts to the library of Vergerio: 1) Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae,
Oxford, Bodleian, cod. Auct. F.I.14 (2481.599); 2) Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae, Trent,
Museo and Bibl. Nazionale, cod. W.43 (which she describes as an exact copy of the Oxford
text including initials by the same artist; see Kristeller, Iter 6:232a-b, for clarification of
errors in Csapodi-Gardonyi's references); 3) Titus Livius, Historiarum decades tres: I., Ill,
IV., Vienna, Ost. Nationalbibliothek, cod. Lat. 3099; 4) Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalio-
rum libri X, ibid., cod. Lat. 100 (according to the colophon on fol. 95, the codex was copied
originally by Martino da Trieste in 1338); 5) Franciscus Maironis, Quaestiones super L libro
Sententiarum, ibid., cod. Lat. 4792 (the identification of Vergerio's hand in this codex poses
problems because the codex has a date of 1449 at the end; Csapodi-Gardonyi therefore sug-
gested that Vergerio may not have died in 1444 or, more likely, that the date was added
later to the codex); 6) Misc. philosophica, Paris, Bibl. Nationale, cod. Lat. 6390 (glosses of
Vergerio on fols. 69, 83, 93, 95); 7) Lapus CASteWiunculus, A llegationes abbreviatae per Anto-
nium de Butrio, Gulielmus de Holborch, Collectio condusionum, determinationum et decisio-
num Rotae ab anno 1376 usque ad annum 1381, Vienna, Ost. Nationalbibliothek, cod. Lat.
4229 (glosses of Vergerio on fols. 3v, 5, 8, 11?); 8) Grammatica Latina, Budapest, University
Library (Eotvos Lorand Tudomany Egyetem Konyvtara), cod. Lat. 23 (note of Vergerio on
fol. 108). On historical grounds, namely the existence of codices in the library of Vitez or
Corvinus that were originally written in Italy late in the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth
century, some of which were returned to Hungary by the sultan of Turkey in 1877, she sug-
gested that the following codices may also have come from Vergerio's library: 9) Albucasis,
Chyrurgia, translatio Latina Gerardus Cremonensis, Budapest, University Library, cod. Lat.
15; 10) Aristoteles, Physica, Averroes, De substantia orbis, ibid., cod. Lat. 16; 11) Misc. philo-
sophica, ibid., cod. Lat. 17 (probably not from Vergerio's library since fol. 145v indicates a
date of 5 September 1449); 12) Misc. humanistica (including several works of Cicero), ibid.,
cod. Lat. 20; 12) Plutarchus, Aristides et Cato Maior, translatio Latina Franciscus Barbarus,
ibid., cod. Lat. 26. On the codices in the University Library of Budapest, see also Ladislaus
Mezey, Codices Latini Medii Aevi Bibliothecae Universitatis Budapestinensis (Budapest: Aka-
demia Kiado, 1961), 34-37, 39, 41, 43. Vergerio's will made no mention of his books nor of
Vitez. According to an early biographer {Epist., 474-75), his books were numerous. For the
books that Zabarella left to Vergerio, see Agostino Sottili, "La questione ciceroniana in una
lettera di Francesco Zabarella a Francesco Petrarca (tav. IV)," Quademi per la storia
dell'Universita di Padova 6 (1973): 37-38.
160 CHAPTER 10
tioned as an effective exordium, rendering the audience receptive to his
ensuing invective against avarice and against the social structures which
nurtured that vice. The stories and their settings took Vergerio on a
journey backwards through the events and places of his life. The protag-
onists included an ingenuous peasant not unlike those whom Vergerio
would have known from his childhood in Istria, a patrician and cobbler
from the bourgeois and artisan strata of Venetian society, Bohemian and
Polish residents from Sigismund's realm, and the charlatan Toscanello,
who epitomized an academic form of hypocrisy against which Vergerio
had inveighed throughout his career.
The plots of the anecdotes respect the straightforward narrative of
the genre; Vergerio's comments on their meaning reveal the subtlety of
good humor. ^"^ In one story, a Venetian patrician contrives to find out
if a cobbler in his sestiere is as content as he appears to be. The patrician
has observed that the cobbler earns just enough money to support his
wife and himself in a tiny home; despite great wealth, the patrician finds
himself driven to acquire ever greater sums of money. Out of curiosity,
therefore, the patrician decides to see if happiness is really inversely pro-
portional to wealth. He leaves a cache of gold where he knows that only
the cobbler will find it. Alas, the patrician is doubly disappointed by the
results. Initially, to the patrician's satisfaction, the cobbler resists the
urge to take the gold, but his noble resolve weakens. After he snatches
the treasure, he lives the rest of his life in mortal fear of losing it. The
patrician ruins the cobbler's life and, in the process, loses his gold and
his illusions about the virtuous poor.^^
In another story, Vergerio focused again upon the theme of avarice,
exploring the ways in which a capitalist system of commercial exchange
preyed on weak individuals who succumb to the vice. The plot exploit-
ed the reputation of Bohemians for cleverness and Poles for naivete. In
the anecdote, a Bohemian tricks a Pole into allowing him to take the
'^ Epist., 384-95, 452-53. Poggio Bracciolini included the story of the charlatan doctor
(#203) in the Facetiae he published in 1452; Vergerio and Poggio may have originally heard
the account at a gathering of humanists at the Papal Court. The story of the peasant is
much older and has been traced by some scholars to the Talmud. On the genre in the Ren-
aissance, see Barbara C. Bowen, "Renaissance Collections of Facetiae, 1344-1528: A New
Listing," Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 1-3, 263.
'^ Epist., 452-53: "Intervenit ille, aurum offendit; haeret primum stupidus, / ut qui nihil
huiuscemodi tale speraret, sed nequivit tandem pravis opinionibus ingeneratum hominibus
errorem continenter frenare. Itaque circumspicit si quis eum viderit; qui, cum neminem
adesse intellexisset, aurum rapit, domum raptim proficiscitur, homines, bruta, parentes ipsos
pertimescit, ac ne uxori quidem propalare id audet."
Imperial Bureaucrat 161
Pole's hat by using a single word whose meaning changes in their re-
spective languages. Vergerio used the anecdote to denounce the practice
of bankers who deceive their clients by concealing their usurious practic-
es under another name. He found it reprehensible to prey upon the in-
genuous through such ruses; the essence of loaning money at interest did
not change whether one called himself a usurer {usurara) or an exchang-
er {cambius). As an adolescent, Vergerio had decided that he could not
reconcile the merchant's unbridled pursuit of profit with the liberal arts.
Now he specifically censured commercial bankers, who had transformed
"the most honorable arts into the most vile service, the love of wisdom
into the love of silver, oratory into money-changing, and Greek letters
themselves into letters of exchange." Their guilt was compounded by
willful deception. ^^
In the 1430s, Vergerio incorporated two anecdotes into a letter to
loannes de Dominis, the bishop of Segna (Zengg, Senj) in Croatia. ^^
The first dealt with Toscanello, who masquerades as a doctor because
that profession offers the greatest reward to a swindler. All human be-
ings wish to enjoy good health, but almost none have the training to
judge a doctor's ability. Medical diagnoses, even those by the best physi-
cians, had an inherent element of uncertainty. No doctor succeeded in
100 percent of the cases he treated, and the most reliable often disagreed
about proper therapies. Patients were well named: they entrusted them-
selves to a physician's care in the hopes of a cure over time. If the cure
failed, no one really knew if the doctor were to blame. And doctors al-
most always reaped a handsome profit for their efforts. Only the up-
standing character of the physician could guarantee against potential
abuses. Toscanello invents a scheme to exploit those realities. He first
combs medical textbooks and records individual therapies on small
cards, and then he presents himself as a physician to unsuspecting peas-
ants. To attract patients, he offers his services at lower rates than those
'^ Ibid., 387: "Itaque sub appellatione cambii eo negotio tamquam licito palam et absque
rubore utuntur, nomine tamen non re mutata. In hoc quoque parum iusti, campsores
nomen, quod damnati faenoris est appellatio, in honesti operis nomen cambire studuerunt.
Quod genus lucri ab imperitis fieri forsitan potest; ab iis vero qui, et Graece et Latine magna
parte professi, morali philosophiae diutius insudarunt, qua non dico venia sed qua patientia
ferri valeat non satis intelligo. Nam honestissimae quidem artes in vilissimum ministerium,
philosophiam in philargyriam, oratoriam in nummulariam, ipsasque Graecas litteras, mutato
studio, in litteras quas dicunt cambii, per malum cambium converterunt."
" Smith, Epist., xxix, 388n. The letter dates from 1432-36. De Dominis became bishop
of Nagy-Varad in 1440 and was killed by the Turks at the battle of Varna in November of
1444, where King Ladislas III of Poland and the papal legate Giuliano Cesarini also died.
162 CHAPTER 10
that local doctors charge. When an individual seeks his advice, he first
insists on payment. Then, as he reaches into his bag of cards, he urges
the trusting sufferer "to ask God that something good come out."^^ He
selects a remedy purely by chance and tells the patient to follow the
stated regime. The cure generally has no effect, and on occasion it ac-
tually makes things worse. Yet there are also rare instances where the
remedy effects the desired cure. Whatever the outcome, Toscanello pros-
pers as he has anticipated.
Vergerio paired that account with another involving a dimwitted
peasant who goes to great lengths to ingratiate himself with his lord.
The peasant knows the lord's taste for young figs and uses manure on
the fig trees to quicken the maturation process. When the peasant sam-
ples the figs from those trees, however, he discovers to his dismay that
he has only succeeded in ruining their natural flavor. Undaunted, he fills
a basket by mixing the immature figs with others fit for consumption.
Upon tasting the figs, the lord quickly realizes that many are not ripe.
Annoyed at the peasant's attempts to manipulate a reliable process of na-
ture, he devises a lighthearted punishment worthy of the foolish crime.
While the lord eats the few figs that have ripened, he amuses himself by
bouncing the unripe ones off the peasant's head. The dimwitted peasant
can only offer a prayer of thanks that his master loves figs and not
peaches, which, given their solid pit, would make a much greater im-
19
pact.^'
All four stories illustrate that, late in life, Vergerio appreciated the
restiveness of the human heart. Human beings are rarely satisfied with
their material possessions, nor are they inclined to acknowledge the
limits of their capacities. No matter how much or how little one had,
one tended to want more. The cobbler and the peasant had proven just
as avaricious as the Venetian patrician. Moreover, Vergerio lamented the
ways in which the structures of society preyed on the weakness of indi-
viduals who easily give in to avarice. Both the peasant in the countryside
and the cobbler in Venice succumbed to that vice. The peasant foolishly
sought to hasten natural processes, while the cobbler miserably hoarded
" Epist., 392: " 'Pete,' aiebat, 'a Deo, ut bonum tibi eveniat.' " The practice of medicine
in the later Middle Ages included complex recipes for drug therapy. See John M. Riddle,
"Theory and Practice in Medieval Medicine," Viator 5 (1974): 170-83; and Nancy G. Siraisi,
Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils: Two Generations of Italian Medical Learning (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1981), 269-302.
" Epist., 392: " 'Laus Deo, quod persica non fuere quae detuli!' "
Imperial Bureaucrat 163
his bonanza. For Vergerio, the most blatant case of preying upon hu-
man weakness was usury. Those with Httle or no capital placed them-
selves in a state of greater dependency by going into debt. Changing the
name from usury to exchange only added hypocrisy to the bankers' sins
of manipulation.
Among the characters, Toscanello manipulated human gullibility in
the most cynical fashion. When approached as a business, no activity
guaranteed surer profits than treating the ill: doctors never lack for
patients. Having chosen to exploit the art of healing, which supplied al-
most risk-free ways of defrauding others, Toscanello duped the less so-
phisticated members of his society. His breach of trust for the sake of
quick enrichment perverted a noble profession, whose members swore
a solemn oath to heal human suffering. Ever the moral educator, Verge-
rio saw Toscanello as epitomizing the hypocrisy of many who pretend-
ed to be learned. He had left matters to chance rather than skill and
richly profitted by doing so.
In old age, Vergerio continued to insist on the necessity of training
human genius in those arts which had a moral purpose. Beneath their
wit, the anecdotes are pessimistic about human nature. Humans even
make language, a tool for communication, serve their nefarious ends.
The sophistry of the Bohemian, who twists the meaning of words in or-
der to steal from a naive Pole, symbolized for Vergerio the slick ways of
bankers. They use their intelligence to appropriate the meager savings of
unsuspecting clients, and all is done in legal fashion. Rather than chal-
lenge their students to recognize the ways in which social structures
preyed upon human weakness, educators often try to assure that their
students find remunerative employment within those structures. Verge-
rio was forced to admit that human beings had notable capacities to de-
ceive others— and themselves. Yet all was not in vain.
Vergerio claimed that Toscanello and the peasant were really unwit-
ting geniuses, whose insight supplied an antidote for the restlessness of
the human spirit. Before choosing a cure, Toscanello instructs his pa-
tients to ask God for what they needed. Likewise, the peasant has the
sound instinct to thank God for what he has received. There was too
much surety and smugness in the world for Vergerio's liking.
Whence come such great vicissitudes [in our lives]? They do not
result from the state of affairs themselves, which basically remain
the same or at least are not easily transformed even by the most
profound alterations. We ourselves are the source of inconstancy,
164 CHAPTER 10
for we look upon realities in vain as darkness covers our eyes and
we inquire into truth as though feeling about blindly. When deal-
ing with uncertain matters, we cannot keep ourselves from exer-
cising our powers of judgment for what we consider right, even
when impelled by ambiguous or weak reasons; in those cases, as
is only right, we are very often mistaken. Therefore, the sayings
of each of those two characters warn us not to rely on ourselves;
rather, let us ask that he who does not know how to err direct
our path and let us pray for good things for ourselves from the
one who is entirely good and goodness itself.^°
Vergerio decried the destructive effects of self-pity; human ignorance
{imbecillitas) identified suffering as something intrinsically evil. Be grate-
ful that God did not allow greater suffering: though figs may hurt, they
never cause the pain of peaches.
Vergerio's recommendations eventually reached one of his lifelong
friends, the Venetian Niccolo Leonardi. In letters exchanged over the
course of forty years, Niccolo and Vergerio had shared the intimate ex-
periences of their private lives.^^ Niccolo once wrote to Vergerio to in-
form him of the birth of a son, and Vergerio immediately responded to
express his joy, claiming that he felt like a second father to the boy. A
few years later, after Niccolo had built a house on Murano, Vergerio
warned him not to spend too much on the house and jeopardize the
possibility of a liberal education for their son. When Vergerio learned of
^° Ibid., 394: "Unde, quaeso, haec? Unde tanta varietas? Non ex rebus ipsis est, quae
eaedem manent aut non facile tanta mutatione variantur, sed ex nobis, qui quasi per cribrum
oculis caligantibus res intuemur, et veritatem veluti palpantibus manibus inquirimus, ac, de
rebus incertis per rationes ambiguas parumque solidas impulsi, movemur ad recte iudican-
dum; in quo iudicio, ut aequum est, frequentissime fallimur. Quamobrem utriusque verbis
monemur non confidere de nobis, sed ab eo petamus dirigi, qui nescit errare, atque ab eo
ipso, qui totus bonus est et ipsum bonum est, nobis bona precemur, illud insuper sentientes,
sine quo superior ratio parum valet, ut nonnisi bona existimemus quaecumque dederit ille,
qui mala dare non potest. Quod si hoc admittere nostra imbecillitas non sustinet, sed mala
iudicat quaecumque molesta sunt, gratias saltem agamus divinae bonitati, quod peiora pro-
hibuit et maiore nos molestia turbari non permisit."
^' Ibid., 303-4, 307-8, 311-12; Marcello Zicari, "II piu antico codice di lettere di P.
Paolo Vergerio il vecchio," Studia Oliveriana 2 (1954): 54-55; and Vittorio Zaccaria,
"Niccolo Leonardi, i suoi corrispondenti e una lettera inedita di Pier Paolo Vergerio," Atti
e memorie delta Accademia di scienze, lettere ed arti in Padova, n.s., 95 (1982-83): 96-1 10. On
Niccolo, see also Margaret L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986), 62-63, 387-89; and TizianaPesenti, Prq/e«one/>ro-
motori di medicina nello Studio di Padova dal 1405 al 1509: Repertorio bio-bibliografico, Con-
tributi alia storia dell'Universita di Padova 16 (Padua: Centro per la storia dell'Univcrsita,
and Trieste: LINT, 1984), 125-27.
Imperial Bureaucrat 165
the death of Niccolo's mother, he quickly wrote to express his solidarity
and offer Niccolo consolation for his loss. In a different vein, Vergerio
later sent Niccolo a gift of small razors, joking about his magnanimous
generosity and the appropriateness of Tartar blades for one like Niccolo
with a round face and light beard.
Given those long years of friendship, Vergerio must have felt an es-
pecially keen anguish when he read a letter that Niccolo sent him in
1437. After several years of silence, Niccolo wrote to say that he had
seen a copy of Vergerio 's anecdotes about Toscanello and the peasant,
and they had brought him a measure of solace at a most difficult junc-
ture. Niccolo then listed the ways in which adverse fortune had assault-
ed the fortress of his resolve. His son Eustachio had contracted a fatal
illness shortly after arriving in Corfu to assume the prestigious position
of archbishop. Niccolo's only other son, Giovanni, had already pro-
nounced vows in a religious order, leaving Niccolo to cope with the
family's expenses, especially his daughters' dowries. As if matters were
not already difficult enough, Niccolo had been blind for several years
and needed someone to lead him by the hand wherever he went.^ In
old age, therefore, Niccolo found himself deprived of the possibility of
reading, his most cherished form of relaxation. Niccolo concluded by
committing himself to Vergerio's therapy: despite suffering, he would
place his trust in God. Vergerio left no response to his friend's poignant
account. Throughout his career, he had shown special appreciation for
the power of the visible; he had to be moved upon hearing that his
friend had lost his sight. Although Vergerio would find a measure of sat-
isfaction in envisioning Niccolo's laughter as someone read the humor-
ous anecdotes to him, he must also have gathered a chilling sense of the
difficulty in attaining interior freedom, which he had upheld as an ideal
throughout his life.
After the death of Sigismund in 1437, Vergerio apparently retired
from political life. Later biographers suggested that he had taken refuge
in the household of the bishop of Nagy-Varad or in a monastery; his
will, however, was written "in the stove-room of his own house" in
" EpisL, 397: "Iiaque, cum petiissem Romam, hac virtutum suanim fama Corcirensem
archiepiscopatum sibi facile nactus sum, quem eodem adiit tempore et monem obiit. Fuit
ille quidem casus mihi acerbus, atrocior vero hie qui extemplo ilium secutus est. Nam ego
postquam e Roma redii, oculis Dei digito captus octo iam annis nihil cemo nee eo sensu
penitus utor, sed si quo progredior, duce mihi opus est, qui manibus et trahat et regat. lu
senex calamitosus caecus sedeo, solatio etiam lectionis, cum solus sum, quae me plurimimi
delectabatur, privattis."
166 CHAPTER 10
Buda.^^ When Vergerio's biographers tried to fill in the picture of his
last years, they tended to cast him in the image of his hero Jerome. One
author insisted that Vergerio spent those years composing and translat-
ing the lives of the church fathers; Jerome had likewise written a series
of biographies of early Christian monks. ^"^ A second biographer posited
close pyschological ties between Vergerio and Jerome, which he traced
to their common origins in the region of Istria and their common ded-
ication to eloquence. No one should be surprised, therefore, that Verge-
rio spent the last years of his life in Buda living as though he were a her-
mit .^^ In the seventeenth century, an anonymous biographer, perhaps
Bartolomeo Petronio, carried that identification to its logical conclusion.
He claimed that, after the emperor's death, Vergerio entered a monas-
tery in Buda belonging to the Congregation of the Apostolic Friars of
Saint Jerome {Gesuati). Historians have treated the biographer's report
with warranted skepticism: the Gesuati had no monastery in Buda at
that time.^^
How did Vergerio approach death? Were he true to his ideals, he
would confront death in the spirit of a Stoic Christian. Vergerio had
^^ Smith, Epist., xxix-xxx, 473, 477. For the reference to Vergerio's house, see ibid., 468:
"in stupha domus habitationis dicti testatoris. . . ." The relevant bishops of Nagy-Varad were
loannes de Cursola, O.M., (1435, d. 1440) and loannes de Dominis (1440, d. 1444); see Csa-
podi-Gardonyi, Die Bibliothek des Vitez, 21-22, who feels certain that Vergerio spent time
with loannes Vitez and loannes de Dominis in Nagy-Varad.
^* Anon., "Vitz," Epist., 475: "vitas etiam nonnullorum sanctorum patrum in Latinum
versas, ediditque alia." The biography was written sometime between 1444 and 1447 and
was based upon information supplied by Petruspaulus De Buionis, the notary for Vergerio's
will. As payment for his services, De Buionis received from Vergerio's estate a purse {scar-
sella), a warmer {caldaria), and a tray (scutella). More memorably, he brought a camel back
from Hungary, which Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini had captured from the Turks and sent to
Pope Eugene FV.
^^ Anon., "Vita," Epist., 477-78. The biographer adduces two separate sources for his
information. First, a "brother" of Vergerio told Guarino of those circumstances: "Cum es-
sem iis diebus Veronae, offendi illic quendam fratrem Vergerii. Paulum incolumem, tametsi
esset in ultima vitae senectute, et esse apud Budam tamquam in eremo dicebat." Smith iden-
tifies the relative as Vergerio de' Vergerii, son of Simone and administrator of Vergerio's
possessions in Capodistria. The second source was lanus Pannonius: "et pervenit iuxta
Budam, [et] accepit, dum confabularetur cum quibusdam viris illius civitatis, ibi esse doctissi-
mum virum Italicum in eremo commorantem, unde ilico adivit ipsum." The author himself
therefore concludes: "Itaque optimus philosophus et religiosissimus fuit eorum qui vive-
ba<n>t in eremo." The author also notes that Vergerio, like Jerome, had suffered persecu-
tion at the hands of Roman clerics due to his invectives against their immoral behavior
(ibid., 478). Beyond the fact that he was a student of Guarino, nothing more is known of
the author's identity.
^^ Bartolomeo Petronio?, "Compendio della vita di Pier Paolo Vergerio," Epist, 473:
"Cum se iam annosum et senio confectum intelligeret, vitae contemplativae se dedicans
lesuatorum saeptis se clausit. . . ."
Imperial Bureaucrat 167
once begun to compose a dialogue on death and immortality, which he
modeled upon Pseudo Seneca's De remediis fortuitorum. In the fragment
of the text that exists, Vergerio candidly admitted that the thought of
death caused him fear, but that fear ultimately made no sense. Why fear
what one cannot avoid? The fear of death only makes life miserable and
in no way changes the fact that we will die. The best therapy, therefore,
lay in reflecting soberly on death's inescapable reality.^ On 3 May
1444, sensing the imminence of his own death, Vergerio composed his
will. Buried within the legal wording of the document, Vergerio intimat-
ed how final his separation from family and Italy had become. In dispos-
ing of his possessions, Vergerio left one hundred gold florins to "a poor
relative from his patrilineage, if such a person could still be found
alive." Absence made his heart grow fonder for Italy; he named two
Italians as executors, the Florentine Manetto Ammannatini (1384-1450)
and the Roman cardinal Giuliano Cesarini (1389-1444). Ammannatini
had emigrated to Hungary in 1409 and was then employed at the royal
court. Cesarini had come to the empire as the papal legate for the cru-
sade against the Turks and would be killed in the battle of Varna just a
few months later.^* According to the best evidence, in early July of
1444, Vergerio died at his home in Buda. If his wishes were heeded, he
was buried in the Dominican church of Saint Nicholas. Today, only the
Gothic bell tower of the church still stands within the enclosure of the
fortress. Vergerio's grave has been lost together with much of the mate-
rial evidence from his years in imperial service.
^ Epist, 308-10, 445-46. Vergerio wrote three consolatory letters: to Giovanni da Bolo-
gna for the death of Santo de' Pellegrini (ibid., 183); to Niccolo Leonardi for the death of
his mother (ibid., 303-4); and to Guglielmo da Ravenna for the death of his son (ibid., 308-
10). According to an autograph gloss, Vergerio was extremely ill and almost died in 1440;
see Csapodi-Gardonyi, Die Bibliothek des Vitez, 26, who cites Budapest, University Library,
cod. Lat. 23, fol. 108 (plate 83): "A. d. MCCCCXL fui infirmus ad mortem quod numquam
talem autem infirmitatem fui passus."
^ PPV, Testamentum, Epist., 463-71. An Orsola de' Vergerii, the daughter of Domenico,
inherited a considerable sum from Vergerio's possessions. For the executors, see Csapodi-
Gardonyi, Die Bibliothek des Vitez, 22-23, 28; and Alfred A. Stmad and Katherine Walsh,
"Cesarini, Giuliano," £)5/ 24:194.
Conclusion
Pierpaolo Vergerio the elder gave important new directions to the
humanist movement and thus supplied leadership to the bold group
of Italian humanists, who early in the fifteenth century constituted them-
selves an avant-garde.^ The humanists of the third generation— Vergerio,
Leonardo Bruni, Niccolo Niccoli, Poggio Bracciolini, Antonio Loschi—
pressed adherents of the movement to focus upon five social concerns.
First, they deflected humanists from any temptation toward a demagogic
politics. Seeing man as political by nature, they advocated a politics that
' For the characterization of Vergerio's generation as avant-garde, see E. H. Gombrich,
"From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts: Niccolo Niccoli and Filippo Bru-
nelleschi," in The Heritage ofApelles: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (Oxford: Phaidon,
1976), 93-110. Leonardo Bruni's Dialogi, which he dedicated to Vergerio, have rightly been
seen as that generation's manifesto for humanism. See, e.g., Hans Baron, The Crisis of the
Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism
and Tyranny (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1955; rev. ed., 1966), 225-69, 512-14; Hans
Baron, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Political Literature (Chi-
cago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968), 102-37; Jerrold E. Seigel, " 'Civic Humanism' or Cice-
ronian Rhetoric? The Culture of Petrarch and Bruni," Past and Present, no. 34 (July 1966):
9-28; Eugenio Garin, "Ritratto di Leonardo Bruni Aretino," y4«i e memorie della Accademia
Petrarca di lettere, arti e scienze, n.s., 40 (1970-72): 6-12; Neal W. Gilbert, "The Early Italian
Humanists and Disputation," in Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi, eds.. Renaissance
Studies in Honor of Hans Baron (Florence: Sansoni, and De Kalb, 111.: Northern Illinois
Univ. Press, 1971), 203-26; David Marsh, The Quattrocento Dialogue: Classical Tradition and
Humanist Innovation, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 35 (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1980), 24-37; Quentin Skinner, The Renaissance, vol. 1 of The Founda-
tions of Modem Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 80; David
Quint, "Humanism and Modernity: A Reconsideration of Bruni's Dialogues," Renaissance
Quarterly 38 (1985): 431-42; and Lars Boje Mortensen, "Leonardo Bruni's Dialogus: A Cice-
ronian Debate on the Literary Culture of Florence," Classica et Mediaevalia 37 (1986): 259-
85.
170 Conclusion
was serviceable to the needs of bourgeois oligarchs.^ Within that govern-
ing elite, however, individuals of talent must always be free to articulate
their views and win positions of responsibility. Strict standards of Cice-
ronian Latinity would assure the exclusive nature of the elite, whereas
honest expression of ideas through Latin oratory would identify those
worthy of advancement.
Secondly, to prepare the governing elite for their role in political so-
ciety, those humanists developed an educational program which under-
lined the importance of their disciplines and distanced itself from the
Aristotelian curriculum of Europe's universities. A humanist education
would begin during adolescence, stress different disciplines, and prepare
students to fulfill their role as citizens of the civic community. Central
to the success of such an education were its emphases on forming char-
acter and mastering rhetoric. The two were closely related: no politician
could hope to engender consensus among the governed if he did not live
the values that he advocated publicly.
Thirdly, the generation of Bruni and Vergerio wanted humanists to
appropriate fully the rhetorical culture of antiquity. As an art, rhetoric
primarily taught one success in public speaking; its applications to liter-
ary and visual expression were secondary. Fourthly, while those human-
ists pressed for proficiency in rhetoric, they increasingly followed the
lead of recent visual artists. Painters and sculptors had revolutionized ar-
tistic expression by ignoring contemporary conventions and by imitat-
ing ancient ones. In addition, they had proven how effective sight was
in persuading human beings. The orator's primary goal, then, became
that of portraying in words the very "face of virtue." In all of their ac-
tivities, finally, humanists of the third generation had to confront the
censure of clerics in Italy, who suggested that the movement's adherents
had abandoned their faith in a blind rush to embrace the culture of
ancient pagans.
Vergerio emerged as a leader of the humanist movement because he
offered creative responses to all five of the challenges that his generation
faced. Though his political convictions matured and were always
marked by a sense of pragmatism, they remained elitist. His family be-
lieved that they had survived the turbulent years of the War of Chioggia
because a member of the heavenly elite had proven a generous patron
^ Lauro Marlines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (New York:
Knopf, 1979), 191-201.
Conclusion 171
for them. To attain worthy political goals of reintegration and order,
one needed a powerful patron to work his influence downward into the
wider body politic. Vergerio received his political education in the last
decade of the fourteenth century during the wars triggered by the ag-
gressive policies of Giangaleazzo Visconti. Those wars further convinced
him of the dangerous myopia of demagogic politics. The small de-
spotisms of northern Italy, blinded by a fury to expand their territorial
control, often invited the participation of greater powers in their petty
struggles. By looking only to local concerns and by rallying popular sup-
port through wars of conquest, the despots had planted the seeds of
their own destruction.
Like his patron Jerome, Vergerio had developed an intuitive sense of
a res publica litterarum. In that republic of farsighted citizens, there
would be an emphasis on classical Latin and on Ciceronian oratory. Ver-
gerio's letter to Petrarch in the name of Cicero revealed his close psy-
chological association with the Roman champion of free speech within
the governing elite. It also marked his clearest public advocacy of prag-
matism in public life: Cicero had adapted his judgments on the warlords
of his day in keeping with the evolution of their politics. However, he
had refused to sit silently by in comfortable retirement when Mark An-
thony sought to establish a tyranny that would suppress the freedom of
expression which constituted a fundamental right for Rome's elite.
Cicero had defended a republican system of government that restricted
power to an elite (the Senate) within a dominant class (the patriciate).
Vergerio praised the wisdom of Venice's constitutional order precisely
for filtering the control of the Great Council into a smaller Senate. The
Venetian model had a further advantage in that membership in the
Great Council was defined by law, not by birth. The Great Council
could and did expand, and the Venetian Senate, a smaller body, could al-
ways consult more widely, as the Roman Senate had done through the
institution of the contio? Vergerio recommended humanist oratory to
the rulers of his day because that oratory protected the state from two
poHtical extremes. First, it eliminated the temptation toward demagogic
populism because it was understood only by an elite trained in classical
Latin expression. Moreover, in its free and responsible exercise, it prevented
any member of the elite from seizing dictatorial control of government.
' Amaldo Momigliano, "La liberta di parola nel mondo antico," Rivista storica italiana
83 (1971): 521.
172 Conclusion
Vergerio's evaluation of the Carrara regime in Padua likewise be-
trayed the fundamentally elitist character of his political ideas. A despo-
tism like that of the Carrara maintained its political legitimacy as long
as the members of the regime fulfilled their governing obligations. The
governors had to act as beneficent patrons toward the commoners of the
Paduan state, extending their largesse to foster the well-being and har-
mony of the state. Moreover, the governing elite had an obligation to re-
press factionalism within the dominant class. In all political activities,
the despot must maintain a severe regard for legality: being a member of
the elite did not give one the license to choose with impunity an arbitra-
ry course of action. At any given moment, the regime could measure its
success against the harmony of the elite and the contentment of the
broader populace. In matters of foreign policy, the Carrara had best
served Padua when they had seen their state as a participant in contro-
versies that involved greater and lesser powers. Surrendering a measure
of control to a greater regional power might in the end be wiser than
engaging in a hopeless struggle against that regional power. In his politi-
cal writings, Vergerio declared the character of the ruler more important
than the structure of government. He was willing to serve in a monar-
chy or a republic, and not only because he hoped that some government
might pay his living expenses. His emphasis on character, moreover,
made his potential role as an educator of the elite that much more ap-
pealing. A good prince often produced mediocre offspring who needed
a sound education if they were to have any hope of overcoming their
defects of character. For Vergerio, a bourgeois sense of internal worth
predominated over any aristocracy of birth. One should earn a govern-
ing role by proving commitment to virtue in deed.
There is no question that Vergerio devised an original approach to a
humanist education. His creativity had a solid grounding in his own per-
sonal experience. From his earliest days as a university tutor in dialectic,
Vergerio had sensed a need to reorient education. While valuing logic as
a tool for rational argumentation, Vergerio did not accept logic as a basis
for all future studies. Scholastic logic directed students toward a purely
intellectual training and lacked the moral emphasis that Vergerio
deemed essential.'* Vergerio further decried a lack of flexibility in uni-
versity programs. He began to elaborate an alternative in the PauluSy
■* Bruce A. Kimball, Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education
(New York and London: Teachers College Press, 1986), 67.
Conclusion 173
where he traced a path between two extremes. Educators must not offer
rigid norms without attention to individual character and experience,
but they must not impart a sense of freedom as the license to do whatev-
er one felt like doing. Genuine freedom was responsible and best re-
vealed itself in the art of "good and holy living,"^ an art which re-
quired training and then practice. Vergerio also capitalized on his
knowledge of classical sources. After he had studied Greek with Manuel
Chrysoloras, he became aware that Pseudo Plutarch had written a
treatise on the education of children. Vergerio crafted his own program
for adolescents. He thereby tied the educational program to the process
of maturation. He felt that it was especially important to stress the
formation of character in adolescence, when one discovered for the first
time the power of libido.
Already in 1396, Vergerio had reached firm conclusions about the
best way to form character in the adolescent sons of the political elite.
In letters to a friend, Ludovico Buzzacarini, he underlined the impor-
tance of a trio of subjects useful for public life— moral philosophy, his-
tory, and rhetoric. All three fell squarely within the purview of human-
ists. Moral philosophy prescribed norms for proper behavior, history
illustrated the success or failure of human beings in adhering to those
norms, and rhetoric supplied the skill to persuade others of their impor-
tance. Once conceptualized, Vergerio gave that trio a central role in his
treatise on humanist education, De ingenuis moribus. Historians rightly
see that subcurriculum for political life as one of the treatise's most in-
genious elements. Within that trio, moreover, Vergerio drew upon his
previous poHtical experience and assigned a place of preeminence to
rhetoric. In his earliest efforts to win Carrara patronage, Vergerio had
attempted to use oratory as his passport to public service. When one
compares the sermons and speeches that Vergerio composed at Padua in
the last decade of the fourteenth century with those of his contemporar-
ies, it is clear that he had adopted an innovative approach to public
speaking. His panegyrics for Jerome provoked negative reactions among
traditionalists; Vergerio admitted to abandoning the thematic form and
concomitant logical emphases of preaching customary in his day. His
funeral oration for Francesco da Carrara il Vecchio in 1393 easily distin-
guishes itself from the sermons of Francesco Zabarella and Giovanni Ludo-
vico Lambertazzi because Vergerio again disregarded the thematic form of
Cicero Off. 1.6.19.
174 Conclusion
preaching. He chose to follow ancient norms tor panegyric and to exploit
the power of the visible in arousing pathos among his listeners.
Through public speeches, Vergerio sought to make the political sig-
nificance of impressive spectacles clear to those who understood his clas-
sicizing medium. All could see the outpouring of grief at the burial of
Francesco da Carrara. When Vergerio described the crowd of mourners
in attendance, he arranged them according to a proper class structure.
By following classical principles and classical models to craft his praise,
Vergerio thereby introduced a potentially radical dimension into a fun-
damentally conservative enterprise.^ As his preferred weapon, he wield-
ed the principle of ethos in a Roman sense. Societal leaders should be
measured against the values that they themselves advocate. The principle
acquired a sharp edge in proportion to the rigidity of a society's hierar-
chy. The more entrenched the elite, the more menacing the principle
that they are accountable for living the values they sanction. Status be-
comes meaningless; only deeds count. Rather than attack the structures
of society, humanists praised or censured the behavior of the governing
elite.
Vergerio 's experience in composing orations for important civic and
religious rituals in Padua led him to distinguish his own style of human-
ism from that of the movement's founder, Francesco Petrarca. Whereas
Petrarch preferred the poet's solitude of the Vaucluse, Vergerio desired
to be an orator active in the public square of the city-state. He opted for
a more integral commitment to ancient rhetorical culture. When Carlo
Malatesta destroyed a statue of Virgil in 1397, Vergerio used the occa-
sion to prosecute Carlo before the bar of learned opinion. He shaped
the invective as an appeal to recover the political dimension of the rhe-
torical culture of antiquity: Carlo's attack on Virgil represented an at-
tack on Cicero as well. Humanists could legitimately pursue the compo-
sition of poetry, but the movement would never achieve a full mirroring
of classical standards unless its orators spoke out in public. In his theo-
retical writings, Vergerio argued for a restoration of the traditional
opportunities for public speaking, in his day restricted only to the
ceremonial occasions of the epideictic genre. He also offered Cicero as
the single model for those who aspired to success in public speaking, and
he stressed decorum in style and substance, shunning the excesses of
* Maurizio Bettini, Antropologia e cultura romana: Parentela, tempo, immagini dell'anima
(Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1986), 129-31.
Conclusion 175
Asianism in favor of the sobriety of Atticism/ In effect, Vergerio
redefined the social role of a humanist intellectual: he was not simply to
be a scholar or poet but rather an important actor in the political life of
Italy's republics and despotisms.
Once employed at the Papal Court in 1405, Vergerio began to prac-
tice what for years he had preached. In 1406, he spoke before Pope In-
nocent VII and the nobles of the Roman commune as he attempted to
reconcile them after the violence of the previous year. A few weeks
later, Vergerio prodded Innocent to address critical problems affecting
the Roman Church. When Vergerio delivered a panegyric of Jerome to
the Papal Court, he emphasized Jerome's mastery of pagan learning and
his ability to tame a lion, the wildest of beasts. The pope would do well
to repudiate the relentless attacks that censorious clerics like Giovanni
Dominici launched against humanism. Likewise, the pope should emu-
late Jerome by approaching his rival claimant in Avignon with the same
sort of kindness and patience that yielded such dramatic results with the
lion. After Innocent died without resolving the Schism, Vergerio un-
leashed the full force of his invective to castigate the Roman cardinals
for their repeated failings and to convince them to delay in electing a
successor to Innocent. Vergerio's ardor for church reform had been
stoked through his personal conversations with Bernardino da Siena. He
denounced the hypocrisy of the Roman clergy: the pope never acted on
his promises to meet his Avignonese rival and the cardinals never ad-
hered to their oath to resign if elected pope.
To highlight those transgressions, Vergerio painted a portrait of
primitive Christianity, in which the mores of early churchmen appear
in sharp contrast to those of clerics in Vergerio's day. What little the
early Christians possessed, which included no silver or gold, was held in
common for the benefit of all. In keeping with his emphasis on charac-
ter, Vergerio traced the roots of the Schism to personal vices prevalent
among the Church's leaders. Ambitious and avaricious, the higher clergy
had enriched themselves and ignored the needs of the people of God.
Despite the urgency of his plea, Vergerio failed to convince the cardinals
to delay their election. Two years later, in 1408, he tried to use his
panegyric of Jerome to effect a change of heart in the new pontiff.
' Marcello Aurigemma, Studi sulla cultura letteraria fra Tre e Quattrocento (Filippo Vtl-
lani, Vergerio, Bruni) (Rome: Bulzoni, 1976), 68-73; and Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance
Thought and Its Sources, Michael Mooney, ed. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1979), 220.
176 Conclusion
Gregory XII. Once again he painted a portrait of Jerome as a champion
of humanist learning and a model of Christian detachment. Yet Gregory
clung to his authority, and, a year later, Vergerio abandoned the Papal
Court in disgust. One last time, in 1421, he would speak publicly in an
effort to foster reconciliation, on that occasion between Catholics and
Hussites in the reign of Sigismund. He sought to make the parties see
how much they had in common; even their division over receiving com-
munion from the chalice might be resolved through compromise and
understanding, without legislating uniformity of practice. Less tolerant
voices, however, prevailed.
In virtually all of those speeches, Vergerio characteristically tried to
capitalize on the power of the visible. His lifetime of humanist activity
had taught him that the visual evoked a more powerful emotional re-
sponse than the purely cerebral.^ Each time he returned to his home-
town of Capodistria, depending on whether he approached by sea or
land, he saw a distinct difference in character. From the sea, one ob-
served the admirable qualities of the town, its healthy environment and
potential for civic harmony. By land, however, one obtained a less at-
tractive perspective, crossing a fetid swamp whose infected air symbol-
ized the factionalism of Capodistria at its violent worst. When Vergerio
wrote his first classicizing orations in Padua, he exploited the power of
the visible. To commemorate the restoration of Francesco Novello to
power, Vergerio contrasted the devastation wrought on Padua by its
Visconti conquerors to the flourishing character of the city-state under
Carrara rule. In reviewing the assembled mourners at the funeral of
Francesco il Vecchio, Vergerio rendered the structure of the city-state
visible, with its most powerful elements gathered directly behind the
bier of Carrara leadership. The elite signaled their intent to follow the
worthy policies of Francesco il Vecchio, which Vergerio then explained,
lest anyone, especially Francesco Novello, forget them.
Vergerio's persistent interest in urban culture and government re-
ceived literary expression in a series of projected treatises on specific
cities: Capodistria, Rome, Venice, and Florence. Even the notes for
those unfinished works establish that Vergerio intended to start from
the visual evidence of site and topography and then proceed to the more
* John W. O'Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine, and Re-
form in the Sacred Orators of the Papal Court, c. 1450-1321, Duke Monographs in Medieval
and Renaissance Studies 3 purham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1979), 62-67, esp. 63.
Conclusion 177
subtle structures of government and constitutional order. From his
childhood, he distinctly remembered the pleasing setting and harmoni-
ous civic life of Cividale del Friuli. He professed abiding convictions
that, were a city's site well chosen and its edifices well constructed, then
its government would function smoothly. The arts of building and gov-
erning were related, and the choices made had strategic, economic, and
ethical consequences. In responding to the destruction of Virgil's statue
in 1397, Vergerio displayed stronger repugnance than did the other hu-
manists who responded to the crime. Vergerio alone emphasized the in-
spirational power of a visible monument and ridiculed the purported
piety of fanatics who were then destroying precious items in Italy's artis-
tic patrimony. Their actions manifested a bigotry hardly in keeping with
the values of a church whose highest ideals were professedly catholic.
Just a year later, in 1398, Vergerio felt a deep sense of shame when he
saw the condition of the city of Rome. The city's decrepit physical con-
dition, constantly exacerbated by the reckless pillaging of ancient monu-
ments, mirrored a deeper moral corruption. When Vergerio later served
the popes in Rome, he realized that he must assign ultimate blame for
the corruption to the popes; they had placed their own prestige before
the needs of the community and become blind to the degradation of
their see.
Throughout his life, Vergerio found inspiration for his provocative
convictions in the work of visual artists. He exalted Giotto as genuinely
avant-garde and as the appropriate standard for excellence among paint-
ers in his own day. Likewise, Vergerio sought to become an avant-garde
orator by adhering to the standard of excellence set by Cicero. The vis-
ual arts helped Vergerio to clarify his educational goals in his seminal
treatise on humanist education. Admiring sculptors who left the rough-
ing out of a first design to the stonecutters, Vergerio preferred that
grammarians fulfill the essential but less stimulating task of assuring that
students could read and write the Latin language correctly. Then the
humanists would polish that rough material into works of art — students
skilled in the humanities. As an ideal, Vergerio proposed that educators
help students to see the very face of virtue itself. He also gave practical
recommendations about what they should not see. And, late in life, Ver-
gerio once again realized how precious the gift of sight was when Nic-
colo Leonardi, an intimate friend, went blind.
In all of his contributions to humanism, Vergerio never wavered in
one fundamental conviction: there was no contradiction for him be-
tween his Catholic faith and his humanist endeavors. From his child-
178 Conclusion
hood, Vergerio had experienced a world-affirming Christian piety
centered upon charitable deeds to those in need. That piety received pe-
culiar expression when his family observed the feast day of Saint
Jerome, For Vergerio, Jerome became both a friendly patron and a wor-
thy exemplar of his highest ideals. Through panegyrics of Jerome, Ver-
gerio attempted to diffuse the power of his beneficent patron. He also
attempted to conform himself to Jerome's virtues of humility and de-
tachment as he traveled the Italian world in his chosen vocation as a
scholar of Latin letters. Vergerio's was a piety imbued with tolerance; he
attempted to walk a fine line between commitment to the distinctive
qualities of Christianity and respect for honest inquirers who lived
beyond the official bounds of Christianity.' Several experiences nour-
ished the tolerant character of that piety. His father had proven an
understanding mentor, especially when Vergerio decided not to marry.
Such flexibility on the part of Vergerio's father in turn enlivened his
own affinity for the revolutionary spirit of the comedy of Terence.
Years later, when Vergerio wrote a treatise on liberal education, he
made tolerance a hallmark of that work, stressing a need to adapt any
program of learning to the individual's talents, inclinations, and needs.
It is no surprise, then, that Vergerio loathed expressions of Christian
piety that undermined a spirit of charitable tolerance. Vergerio did not
fear the potentially deleterious effects of the pagan tradition upon
Christianity; rather, he feared the obviously destructive effects of zealot-
ry, which undermined the authentic spirit of Christianity. The pious
zeal of Carlo Malatesta led him to tear down a statue of Virgil. Other fa-
natical Christians were defacing frescoes which depicted Romans and
Jews engaged in the crucifixion of Jesus. Worst of all, and symbolic of
those misguided instincts, the city of Rome was subjected to incessant
pillaging of the classical heritage by those acting in the name of Chris-
tian piety. To those fanatical bigots, Vergerio offered the contrary exam-
ple of Saint Jerome. Using his preferred medium of classicizing oratory
to celebrate Jerome in public panegyrics, Vergerio sketched a portrait of
Jerome as the humanist scholar and Christian confessor. The Christian
and non-Christian heritages converged in Jerome, a saintly doctor and
a good man skilled in public speaking. Jerome proved himself to be a
man of genuine integrity because he exemplified the high ideals that he
championed.
O'Malley, Praise and Blame, 157-60.
Conclusion 179
Vergerio's panegyrics of Jerome were consciously provocative in
their medium and their message. In substance, he argued that Jerome
achieved so much for the Christian community precisely because he was
trained as a humanist scholar. His training gave him the philological and
the rhetorical tools he needed to translate the Scriptures accurately and
eloquently. When Vergerio analyzed Jerome's famous dream, he did not
see it as a blanket condemnation of humanist studies but as a warning to
use those studies for the various needs of the believing community. In
fact, Jerome's cultural formation reflected Ciceronian emphases: he insis-
tently sought a knowledge that was relevant to important public con-
cerns and he insistently manifested an ethos that was persuasive to a
broad range of admirers. His most compelling deeds of virtue reflected
the profound detachment of an informed conscience. Jerome left Rome
when his election as pope seemed assured. Jerome went to study under
Gregory of Nazianzus when he enjoyed a reputation as one of the most
learned scholars of the day. And Jerome overcame the temptation to re-
turn to the profligate ways of his adolescence because he had tamed the
beast of his libido.
Those virtuous deeds had continuing relevance for the pressing con-
cerns of Christians in Vergerio's time. Through the years, as Vergerio
preached on Jerome, he gave his sermons an ever more prophetic edge.
He advocated a greater rigor in the monastic life, endorsing goals similar
to the Observant movement of the era. He urged preachers to pay
greater attention to the quality of their own lives, echoing widespread
dissatisfaction with the clergy's immorality. He pressed the Church's
governing elite to reject clericalism, offering the primitive Christian
community as a model for reform. Nor did Vergerio hesitate to depict
the ways in which Jerome defied conventional wisdom. He publicly
praised Jerome for his dedication to classical culture at a moment when
Carlo Malatesta destroyed a statue of the poet Virgil. He denounced the
tendency to measure human greatness in terms of success in warfare in
an era when Giangaleazzo Visconti and his opponents embroiled Italy
in constant warfare. And he applauded Jerome's willingness to forego
election to the bishopric of Rome at a time when two claimants had bat-
tled for years to be recognized as the supreme pontiff.
To communicate that portrait, Vergerio chose an appropriately clas-
sicizing medium. He did not use the conventional form of preaching,
which was based on the division and analysis of a single verse from
Scripture. Rather, he chose to preach according to the norms of panegy-
ric that ancient theorists had cataloged in their handbooks on rhetoric.
180 Conclusion
Indisputably, Vergerio was one of the most creative voices of the new
generation of humanists. At a moment when Coluccio Salutati, revered
elder statesman of the humanist movement, retreated from a full defense
of humanism out of austerely Christian convictions, Vergerio used a
Christian hero of his childhood as a model for the committed humanist
intellectual.^^ One could, therefore, be humanist and Christian; in fact,
in Vergerio's estimation, Jerome's pursuit of the humanities had made
him that much more catholic.
'° For Salutati's retreat, see Ronald G. Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works,
and Thought of Coluccio Salutati, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6
purham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1983), 392-413.
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Index
Index of Manuscripts
Budapest, University Library (Eotvos
Lorand Tudomany Egyetem Konyv-
tara): cod. Lat. 15, 159n
— cod. Lat. 16, 159n
— cod. Lat. 17, 159n
— cod. Lat. 20, 159n
— cod. Lat. 23, 159n, 167n
— cod. Lat. 26, 159n
Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana: cod.
Acquisti e Doni 441, 52n
Naples, Bibl. Nazionale: — cod.
Vm.C.8, 90n
Oxford, Bodleian: cod. Aua. F.L14,
35n, 159n
— cod. Canon, misc. 166, 121
Padua, Bibl. del Seminario: cod. 196,
88n, 185
Paris, Bibl. Nationale: cod. Lat. 6390,
159n
— cod. Lat. 17888, 184
— cod. Nouv. acq. lat. 1302, 181
Siena, Bibl. Comunale degli Intronati:
— cod. G.X.33, 113-14n, 184
Trent, Museo and Bibl. Nazionale:
— cod. W.43, 35 n. 11, 159n
Vatican City, Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana:
— cod. Chigi. J.Vn.266, 184, 185
— cod. Ottob. lat. 480, 7n, 197
Venice, Bibl. Nazionale Marciana:
- cod. Marc. lat. XI.56 (3827), 39n, 183
- cod. Marc. lat. Xn.26 (3906), 35n
- cod. Marc. lat. Xin.41 (4729), 181
- cod. Marc. lat. XIV.54 (4328), 15n,
159n, 181
- cod. Marc. lat. XIV.254 (4535), 183
Vienna, Ost. Nationalbibliothek:
- cod. Lat. 100, 159n
- cod. Lat. 3099, 159n
- cod. Lat. 4229, 159n
- cod. Lat. 4792, 159n
Volterra, Bibl. Comunale Guarnacciana:
- cod. 9637, 184
General Index
Active and contemplative lives, 53-59,
74-75, 79-80, 100, 127-28, 131, 133,
174-75
Adolescence {adolescentia), 18-29 pas-
sim, 39, 53-54, 59, 89-103 passim,
105, 112, 113-14, 119, 128, 129, 149,
161, 170; moral education for, 90, 93,
101-2, 170, 173, 179; signs of liberty
in, 91-92; characteristic habits of, 94
Alfonso I (of Naples), 157
Alidosi, Ludovico degli, 72, 77
Alessio, Nicoletto d', 3 In, 34
Alexander and Nazarius, Saints, 6. See
also Capodistria
Index
215
Alexander of Macedon (the Great), 157
Altichini family, 112
Ammannatini, Manetto, 167
Anon. Letter on Virgil's statue, 72, 78,
80
Anthony, Mark (M. Antonius), 53-54,
56-58, 171
Antonius Petri Donadei de Rocca S.
Stephani de Aquila, 90n
Aquileia, 11; patriarchate of, 4, 36. See
also Caetani, Antonio; Sobieslav, Jan
Aristotle, 54, 142, 170; Rhetoric, 94; De
physico, 96; De caelo et mundo, 96;
defines a fortiori logic, 130-31
Arithmetic, 96, 99
Arms: discipline of, 55, 89, 90
Arrian (Flavius Arrianus), 157-58
Arsendi, Raniero, 112
"Art of Preaching" {ars praedicandi),
48-49, 123, 128, 132, 173-74, 179-80
Astronomy, 96, 99
Athens, 106
Augustine, Saint, 131; City of God, 79
Augustus (C. luhus Caesar Octavianus),
9, 53-54, 56, 58, 66, 74, 117, 119
Avignon, 60, 82, 129, 139, 142, 146, 175
Azoni. See DegU Azoni
Banchini, Giovanni di Domenico. See
Dominici, Giovaimi, O.P.
Banking, 161, 163
Barbaro, Francesco (Franciscus Barba-
rus): De re uxoria, 150
Baron, Hans, ix, 57, 58
Barzizza, Gasparino (Gasparinus Bar-
zizza), 149-50
Basel: Council of, 156
Baxandall, Michael, 80
Beccadelli, PoUione, 114
Benedict Xm (Antipope), 139, 146-47,
150
Bergamo, 32
Bernardino da Siena, O.F.M., Saint,
143-45, 175
Bethlehem, 7-8
Bianchi, movement of, 15
Bible, 48, 79, 132, 142, 156, 179-80;
Apocalypse of Saint John, 78
Boarding school, 14, 100-1
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 78
Bohemia, 154-56, 160-61, 163
Bologna, 11, 17, 20, 22, 31, 32, 36, 72,
79-80, 87, 107; University of, 11, 17-
29 passim, 60, 86, 90, 124, 159
Boniface DC (Pope), 82, 108, 137-38,
143, 152
Boucicault (Marechal), 119
Bracciolini, Poggio, 81-82, 169-70
Brescia, 1, 32, 108
Britain. See England
Brown, Peter, 7, 135; Cult of the Saints,
4n
Bruni, Leonardo (Aretino), 72, 86, 139,
141, 147, 169-70; Dialogi, 169n
Buda (Ofen), 152-53, 165-67; church of
Saint Nicholas, 167
Buonaccorsi, FiHppo (Callimaco), 158n
Buzzacarini family, 87n; Ludovico, 62,
80, 97, 173; Fina, 110
Caesar, Juhus (C. lulius Caesar), 53-56,
58, 113
Caetani, Antonio, 17, 64; appointed
patriarch of Aquileia, 62
Calcidius, 15
Calvis, Antonio de (Cardinal), 147
Capodistria (Koper), 2-3, 5-11, 14, 31,
33, 39, 62, 88, 106, 116, 122, 148,
176; Venetian dominance of, 5-6;
Genoese sack of, 6; diocese of, 7;
etymology of, 9-10
Carrara family, 20, 31-34, 38, 40-49,
58, 60, 70, 88-89, 103, 107-17, 119-
20, 132, 172, 173, 176
— Francesco Novello da, 31-33, 38-39,
41, 42, 43-46, 47, 49, 52-53, 58, 63,
64, 71, 82, 89, 107-9, 111, 116, 137,
154, 176
— Francesco il Vecchio da, 34, 41-43,
46-49, 52, 110, 116, 173-74, 176
— Gigliola da, 71
— Francesco HI da, 71, 107-8
— Ubertino di Francesco Novello da,
89-90, 92-94, 103, 119
— Giacomo di Francesco Novello da,
107-8
216
Index
— Giacomino da, 110, 113
— Giacomo I (Grande) da, 111, 112-13,
115
— Ubertino I da, 112, 113-15, 119
— Giacomo 11 da, 113, 116
— Marsilietto Papafava da, 113
— MarsUio (Grande) da, 113, 114, 115-
16
— Niccolo da, 113, 114
Casalecchio: battle of, 107
Catiline (L. Sergius CatUina), 54, 56
Cattaneo, Ludovico, 154
Cermisone, Bartolomeo, 47
Cesarini, Giuliano (Cardinal), 167
Charles VI (of France), 33, 71, 82
Chrysoloras, Manuel, 86-87, 109, 146-
47n, 150, 173
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 18, 21-22, 24,
29, 35, 36, 37, 49, 52-59, 66, 70, 74-
75, 76, 80-81, 91, 97, 101, 106, 109,
118, 126-27, 128, 131, 133-34, 142,
149-50, 158, 170-71, 174-75, 177,
179; De inventione, 37; De senectute,
106
Cividale del Friuli, 3-4, 6, 11, 62, 130,
177; CouncU of, 147-48
Claudius (Emperor), 93
Constance: Council of, 149-52, 154-56
Conversini, Giovanni (da Ravenna), 10,
34, 37-39, 64, 84, 92, 100, 137. See
also Malpaghini, Giovanni (da Raven-
na)
Corfu, 165
Correr, Angelo (Cardinal). See Gregory
Xn (Pope)
Corvinus, Matthias (King), 158-59
Croatia, 161
Csapodi-Gardonyi, Klara, 158n, 159n
Curio, Giacomo, 157
Dahnatia, 122, 154
Da Lozzo family, 113n
Da Varano family, 41
De Buionis, Petruspaulus, 166n
Declamation, 37-38, 55
Degli Azoni, Ysabeta: mother of PPV,
1, 2n, 4, 6, 11, 62-63, 87
De la Mare, Albinia, 81-82
Delia Scala family, 20, 32, 108, 112-16;
Cangrande, 112, 114, 115; Alberto,
115-16; Mastino, 115-16; Brunoro,
154
Del Tacco, Rantulfo, 14
Dente family, 114; Guglielmo, 114
Dialectic. See Logic
Dominici, Giovanni, O.P., 141, 175
Domitian (Emperor), 77, 102, 117
Drawing, 99
Eloquence, 22, 29, 54, 60, 97-98, 126-
27, 150, 166
England, 66, 86
Ephesus: temple of Diana at, 77
Eric of Pomerania (King of Denmark),
153
Este family, 41; Niccolo HI d', 71;
Obizzo d', 116
Esztergom (Gran), 159
Ethics, 8, 9-10, 18-19, 21-22, 25, 27-29,
32, 36, 59-60, 62, 75, 77-80, 83, 85-
86, 89-91, 93, 96-98, 99, 101-3, 109-
19 passim, 123, 137-38, 145, 149, 151,
159, 161-64, 172, 173, 175-77
Ethos, ix, 8, 16, 19, 22, 29, 37, 53-57,
70, 74-75, 80, 85-86, 98, 102, 127,
128-29, 133-34, 142, 144, 146, 149,
174, 178-79
Facio, Bartolomeo, 157-58
Factionalism, 10, 40, 56-57, 62, 67, 70,
111-15, 118, 172, 176
Federigo da Venezia, O.P., 43
Ferrara, 71, 148. See also Este family
Filargo, Pietro (Cardinal), 143
Fiorello da Lucca, 114
Firmness (constantia), 67
Florence, 11, 12, 13, 14, 31, 32, 36, 51-
52, 58, 64, 71, 72, 81, 86-87, 107-8,
115-16, 139, 146-47, 176; University
of, 12; convent of Santo Spirito, 14,
36
France, 33, 71, 82, 86
Francesco da Fiano, 140-41
Franciscans, 143; Spiritual, 124-25
Frangipani family, 41
Index
217
Freedom. See Liberty
Garin, Eugenio, ix, 15
Gaza, Theodore, 157
Genoa, 3-4, 6
Geometry, 96, 99
Germany, 33, 62, 107, 115, 155
Giotto, 80-81, 177
Giovanni da Bologna, 32, 63
Giovanni d' Andrea (loannes Andreae),
124; Hieronymianus, 124
Giovannino da Mantova, O.P., 131
God, 7, 80, 129-30, 133-34, 140, 142,
145, 162, 163-64, 165
Gonzaga family, 41; Francesco, 32, 71;
Alda, 71; Margherita, 110
Govemolo sul Po: battle of, 71
Grammar: Latin, 8, 11, 14, 16, 34, 95,
99, 101, 105, 177
Greece, 8, 74, 144; disciplines taught to
boys in antiquity, 98
Greek language, 9-10, 23, 86-87, 105-6,
126, 141, 142, 153, 157, 161, 173
Gregory XH (Pope), 146-48, 151, 152,
176
Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint, 8, 127-28,
179
Guarini, Guarino (da Verona), 150, 159
Giinther von Schwarzburg (Archbish-
op), 153
Halle, 153
Hebrew language, 126, 142
Hieronymite congregations, 124-25;
Congregation of the ApostoUc Friars
of Saint Jerome (Gesuati), 166
Hieronymus, S. See Jerome, Saint
History, 59, 60, 62, 97-98, 99, 109-11,
118-19, 142, 145, 152, 157, 173
Holstein: nobility of, 153
Homer: Odyssey, 87
Humanism, ix, 21-22, 24, 29, 36, 53, 60,
72, 74-75, 125-35, 138, 140-41, 158,
169-80; and Christian beUef, 130-34,
177-80
Humanities {studia humanitatis), 35, 47,
59-60, 95, 177, 180
Himgary, 167
Hus, Jan, 151, 154-55
Hussites, 154-57, 176; four articles,
155-56
Iglau: Diet of, 156
Imola, 72
Innocent VII (Pope), 85, 137-45, 151,
175
Integrity. See Ethos
loannes Andreae. See Giovanni d' An-
drea
loannes de Dominis (Bishop), 161
Isocrates, 118
Istria, peninsula of, 3, 5, 9-10, 63, 160,
166
Italy, 3, 25, 33, 40, 48, 62, 71, 123-24,
134, 154, 157, 159, 167, 170, 171, 175,
177, 179; Roman province of, 9
lustinus, 9
Jakoubek of Stfibro, 155
Jerome, Saint (Hieronymus, S.), 2-8, 10,
15, 39, 59, 84, 120-35, 141-42, 143,
147, 166, 170-71, 173, 175-76, 178-
80; object of popular cult in Italy,
123-25; miracles of, 124, 130-31;
dream of, 126, 131-32, 142, 179
Jerusalem: Latin kingdom of, 124
Jews, 68, 76, 178
John XXm (Antipope), 148, 152, 155
Justin n (Emperor), 9
Koper. See Capodistria
Kutna Hora (Kuttenberg), 155
Ladislas of Durazzo (King of Naples),
119-20, 138, 140
Lambertazzi, Giovanni Ludovico, 43,
48-49, 64, 173-74
Latin language, 9, 14-16, 43, 46, 61, 87,
106, 109, 122, 126, 142, 153, 157-58,
170-71, 177-78. See also Grammar
Law, 12, 33, 34, 40, 52, 56-57, 59-60,
61-62, 66, 73-74, 83, 86, 98, 99, 111-
12, 117-18, 171-72
Leonardi family, 164-65; Niccolo, 150,
164-65, 177; Eustachio, 165; Giovan-
ni, 165
218
Index
Letters {litter ae): discipline of, 16, 25,
27, 46, 60, 89, 100, 126-27, 141, 178
Liberal arts, 31, 34, 45-46, 90-92, 95-
101, 134, 161, 164, 178
Liberty (lihertas), 11, 25, 28-29, 32, 53,
56, 57, 62, 78, 91-93, 98, 115-17, 125,
127-28, 143, 148, 151, 165, 173; hu-
manist conception of, 24; and free
speech, 55, 57, 58-59, 112, 170, 171
Libidinous desire (libido), 24, 27-28, 56,
57-58, 59, 91, 94, 100, 114, 117, 118,
125, 173, 179
Logic, 11-14, 17-19, 21, 28-29, 33, 48-
49, 95, 99, 130-31, 172-73
Logos, 37, 53
Loschi, Antonio, 138-39, 140-41, 169-
70
Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus), 14, 158
Lucca, 115-16, 147
Lucio, Desiderato, 64
Lucretia, 57-58
Maccaruffi family, 112
Malatesta, Carlo, 71-80, 134, 174, 178,
179
Malatesta, Pandolfo, 78
Malpaghini, Giovanni (da Ravenna),
lln
Mantua, 32, 71-72, 75. See also Gonzaga
family
Martin V (Pope), 151, 155
Medicine, 34, 61, 86, 96, 119, 161-62,
163
Michele da Rabatta, 36, 45
Migliorati, Cosimo (Cardinal). See
Innocent VII (Pope)
Migliorati, Ludovico, 138
Milan, 20, 32, 48, 71, 108, 143
Monselice, 114
Montpellier: University of, 60
Moral Philosophy. See Ethics
Muggia, 63
Music, 25, 95-96, 100, 101
Mussato, Albertino, 131
Nagy-Varad (Grosswardein,
Mare), 165
Oradea
Nero (Emperor), 93, 117
Niccoh, Niccolo, 81-82, 169-70
Niccolo da Sagundino, 157
Octavian. See Augustus
Ohgarchy, 5, 36-37, 40-44, 49, 55-59,
62, 66-67, 70, 103, 111-12, 116, 118,
120, 130, 169-70, 170-72
Oratory, ix, 21, 22, 29, 36-37, 39-49,
53, 55, 57, 58-59, 61, 70, 72-75, 80-
81, 97-98, 103, 127, 141-42, 155-56,
161, 170, 171-78; deliberative, 43;
judicial, 43, 47; epideictic, 43-47, 48-
49, 55-56, 59, 70, 98, 126-34, 170,
174
Orsini, Bertoldo, 154
Padua, 11, 14, 17, 20, 31-49 passim, 51-
52, 58-59, 61-63, 70, 71, 75, 81, 82,
86, 87, 88, 92, 100, 107-20 passim,
121-22, 132, 152, 154, 172, 173-74,
176; University of, 12, 18, 86, 112,
120; citadel, 31, 44; Euganean hills
near, 35, 88n, 149; Commune, 40, 45,
111, 112; Carrara palace, 43, 45. See
also Carrara family
Palaeologus, Manuel (Emperor), 87
Pannonia, 122
Pannonius, lanus, 159
Parma, 115
Passau, 153
Pathos, 37, 49, 53, 94, 174
Paul, Saint, 145
Pavia, 87
Pellegrini, Santo de', 17-21, 33, 63-64
Peter, Saint, 145
Petrarca, Francesco (Francis Petrarch),
36, 41, 51-61, 66, 75, 78, 128, 131,
171, 174; Africa, 51-52, 60-61; Epis-
tola ad posteros, 59; relationship with
Laura, 59, 93, 94
Phidias, 75, 150
Philip the Good (Duke of Burgundy),
157
PhUology, 8, 82, 126, 132, 158, 179
Piccolomini, Enea Silvio, 157-58
Pilato, Leonzio, 87
Pisa: Council of, 148
Index
219
Plague, 11, 15, 20-21, 59, 63, 87-88
Plato, 78, 92, 101, 106; Timaeus, 15;
Gorgias, 87
Plautus, 22-23, 25
Plutarch, 87; biographies, 109
Poetry, 14, 24, 36, 60-61, 73-80 passim,
93-94, 97, 99, 131, 140, 174-75, 179
Poland, 160-61, 163
Polenton (Polentonus), Sicco: Scripto-
rum illustrium Latinae linguae libri
XVIII, 38n
Political prestige (dignitas), 57-58, 113
Pompey the Great (Cn. Pompeius Mag-
nus), 53, 56
Prague, 152, 155
Pseudo Cicero: Rhetorica ad Herennium,
37
Pseudo Plutarch: "De hberis educan-
dis," 103, 173
Pseudo Seneca: De remediis fortuitorum,
167
Rhetoric, 12, 22, 29, 34, 37-38, 43, 48,
53, 62, 73-75, 81-82, 97-98, 99, 103,
122-23, 125, 130, 132, 141-42, 144,
149-50, 151, 170, 173-76, 179-80;
stasis theory, 73-74. See also Decla-
mation; Eloquence; Ethos; Logos;
Oratory; Pathos
Rimini, 71, 147
Risano River, 9-10
Robey, David, ix, 100
Romagna, 63, 72
Rome, 4, 8, 9, 14, 22-23, 40, 42, 47, 66,
70, 74, 76, 82-85, 98, 126, 127, 129,
133, 135, 137-48, 150, 171, 174, 176,
177-79; Roman comedy, 23-25; Ro-
man Repubhc, 23, 53-58, 74; church
of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls, 83;
Pyramid of Gains Cestius, 84; Testac-
cio, 84; Via Appia, 84-85; Roman
Empire, 117-18, 122; church and
canons of Saint Mary Major, 123-24;
nobihty of, 137-38, 175; Castel Sant'-
Angelo, 140; University of, 141
Ronchi family, 112
Rossi family: despots of Parma and
Lucca, 115-16
Rupert of the Palatinate, 82, 107-8
Salutati, Coluccio, 12, 14-15, 16, 36,
51-52, 60-61, 64, 131, 139-40, 146,
154, 180; Letter on Virgil's statue, 72,
78-80; reaction to De ingenuis mori-
hus, 105-7, 140
San Martino di Gavardo: castle of, 1
Schism: Great Western, 82, 85-86, 129,
134-35, 137-52 passim, 175-76, 179;
Orthodox and Roman CathoUc, 85-
86, 146
Scholasticism: and the vmiversity, 29,
95-96, 124, 151, 170, 172-73. See also
"Art of Preaching"; Logic
Science, 22, 29, 96-97, 98-99, 142
Scipio, Pubhus CorneUus (Africanus
maior), 51, 75, 105
Scola, Ognibene, 87n, 154
Scripture. See Bible
Sdregna (Stregna, Sdrigna, Zrenj, Zrinj),
7, 122
Segna (Zengg, Senj), 161
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 18, 20-21, 22,
29, 158
Serfo, 106
Siena, 147; University of, 22
Sigismimd of Hungary (Emperor), 150-
58, 160, 165, 176; Compactata with
Hussites, 156
Simony, 137, 144
Smith, Leonardo, ix
Sobieslav, Jan (Patriarch of Aquileia),
62, 64
Socrates, 102, 128
Sparta: educational traditions in, 90, 102
Stella River, 64
Stridon, 7n, 8, 122
Syria: desert of, 128
Tacco. See Del Tacco
Terence (Pubhus Terentius Afer), 14,
22-25, 28, 35, 100, 159, 178
Thematic sermon. See "Art of Preaching"
Themistocles, 106
Theology, 78, 124, 142-43, 155-56
Thucydides, 87
Timotheus: Greek master of lyre, 102
220
Index
Toul, 153
Trevisan, Zaccaria, 36
Turks, 86, 124, 167
Udine, 62
Urban VI (Pope), 143
Varna: battle of, 167
Vaucluse, 60, 174
Venice, 3-4, 11, 53, 62, 64-70, 71, 108-
9, 114-16, 119, 148, 154, 160, 162,
176; maritime empire, 3, 5-6, 10, 15,
69, 119; government of, 64-65, 66-
69, 171; Arsenal, 66, 69; ritual of
Sposalizio in, 67, 69; Cinque alia
Pace, 67; original citizens, 68; soprac-
consoli, 68-69; mainland empire, 69;
Piazza San Marco, 69; Rialto, 69;
island of Murano, 164
Vergeri, Vergerio di Giovanni de':
father of PPV, 1, 2, 3-4, 6, 11-12, 14,
62-63, 87, 178
Vergerio, Pierpaolo, the elder: birth, 1
— childhood memories of, 2-4
— cult of Jerome, 4-8, 84, 121-23, 125-
35, 141-42, 147, 170-71, 175, 176,
178-80
— ambivalence toward Capodistria, 8-
10, 88, 176
— travels as youth, 10-11
— taught dialectic in Florence, 11, 12,
13, 172
— decision not to marry, 11-12, 178
— Stoic ideals of, 12, 20-21, 29, 166-67
— friendships, 12-13, 35-36, 164-65
— rejected merchant's career, 13, 161
— earhest education and handwriting,
14-15
— taught logic in Bologna, 17-18
— manifested symptoms of depression,
18-19
— Ciceronian ideals of, 21-22, 53, 55-
59, 80-82, 97, 106, 126-27, 133-34,
142, 158, 171, 174-75, 177
— analysis of war against Visconti
(1391), 32-33
— studies in Padua, 33-35, 52, 61-62,
120
— classicizing oratory of, 37-38, 39-40,
43-49, 122-23, 132, 173-74, 175-76,
179-80
— editor of Petrarch's Africa, 51-52,
60-61
— law studies in Florence, 51-52
— curriculum for public life, 62, 97-98,
172-76
— power of visual sense for, 75-77, 80-
82, 101-2, 145, 165, 174, 176-77
— condemned religious bigotry, 75-76,
83-85, 152, 177-80
— and Church reform, 85-86, 125, 128-
29, 140-52, 175-76, 179
— law studies in Bologna, 86
— Greek studies in Florence, 86-87
— tolerance in education, 99-100, 172-
73, 178
— bid to succeed Salutati, 146
— association with Emperor Sigismund,
150-59
— library of, 158-59
— death, 166-67
Works: Sermones decern 0erome pane-
gyrics), ix-x, 2, 7-8, 39, 121-23, 125-
35, 141-42, 147, 175, 176, 178-80
— De situ urbis lustinopolitanae, 8-10,
176-77
— Alegabilia, 14-15
— Paulus, 22, 24, 25-29, 93-94, 100,
159, 173
— De dignissimo funehri apparatu, 41-43
— Oratio ad Franciscum luniorem, 43-
46
— Oratio in funere Francisci Senior is,
46-47, 49, 173-74
— Oratio pro Cermisone, 47-48
— Epistola nomine Ciceronis, 52-53, 55-
59, 70, 128, 171
— Petrarcae vita, 59-60, 93, 94
— Argumenta, 60
— De republica veneta, 65-70
— Letter on Virgil's statue, 72, 73-78, 80
— Fragmentary letter on Rome, 83-85,
177
— Carmen Francisco Zabarellae, 88n
— De ingenuis moribus, 89-108, 119,
140, 141-42, 150, 154, 173
Index
111
— De arte metrica (with Francesco
Zabarella), 95
— Carmen ad Franciscum luniorem,
107-8
— De principibus Carrariensibus, 109-16,
119
— De monarchia, 109, 116-19
— Letter to Salutati in name of Inno-
cent Vn, 139
— <Oratio> (inc: O altitudo divitia-
nim), 140
— Poetica narratio, 140—41
— Pro redintegranda uniendaque ecclesia,
143-46
— Epitaphium (for Manuel Chrysolo-
ras), 146-47n, 149n
— Quaestiones de ecclesiae potestate, 1 SC-
SI
— Epistolary evilogy for Zabarella, ISl-
S2
— Translation of Arrian, 157-58
— Facetiae, 159-64
— Consolatory letters, 164-65, 167n
— Dialogus de morte, 166-67
— Testamentum, 167
Verona, 20, 32, 47, 108, 112, 115-16,
154. See also Delia Scala family
Verzerio EI Luzz^igo, 1
Vicenza, 108
Vincent Ferrer, O.P.: Les Sermons Pane-
gyri/jues, 132n
Virgil (Publius Virgilius Maro), 14, 35,
36, 61, 74, 75, 77-80, 97, 174; statue
in Mantua, 72-80, 85, 134, 174, 177,
178, 179
Visconti family, 60; Giangaleazzo
(Duke), 20, 31-33, 36, 42, 43-44, 46,
47, 53, 58, 63, 71, 72, 82, 107-8, 134,
137, 171, 176, 179; Caterina, 108
Visual arts, 49, 75, 101, 170, 177
Viterbo, 138, 143
Vitez, loannes (de Zredna), 158-59
War: of Chioggia, 3-4, 15, 34, 68, 69,
125, 170-71; Hundred Years, 86
Wenceslaus of Germany (Emperor), 33,
82
Zabarella, Francesco, 12, 16, 33, 35, 43,
48-49, 59, 64, 82, 85, 95, 101, 109,
120, 139-40, 147, 148-49, 150-52,
173-74; Letter in defense of Cicero,
52-53, 54-55, 57; De felicitate, 88;
named a cardinal, 148
Zambeccari, Pellegrino, 36, 72, 78-80
Zeno, Carlo, 119
Pierpaolo Vergerio (ca. 1369-1444), a major figure in the third genera-
tion of humanists, was himself the subject of some debate among leading
historians of the early Renaissance, especially Hans Baron, Eugenio
Garin, and David Robey (who gave somewhat too much emphasis to
the view of Vergerio as a traditionalist). In this biography, however,
what emerges is Vergerio's originality as the key to both his life and
works on the one hand and, on the other, to his influence on fifteenth-
century humanism generally. Essentially elitist in his approach, Vergerio
was deeply concerned with the need to reorient education. He believed
that Scholastic logic overstressed purely intellectual training at the ex-
pense of the moral element which Vergerio himself deemed central to
the worthy life. So he emphasized a trio of subjects essential to public
life: moral philosophy, history, and rhetoric. At the same time, his zeal
for church reform led him to the papal court where he used his position
to try to influence Pope Innocent VII and later Pope Gregory XII to ac-
cept humanistic teachings as a model for Christian detachment. All in
all, he exercised a broad influence in the development of humanism, par-
ticularly in the areas of epistemology, ideology, and educational curricu-
lum, in the emphasis on ethos and its relationship to the university, to
political authority, to religious belief, and to the visual arts. Finally, by
emphasizing public service through oratory, Vergerio supplied a new
matrix for Italian humanism.